The Destruction Of The Environment In Margaret Atwood's Oryx And Crake?

These precautions were harmless, but not particularly helpful. In the past, these precautions proved very effective in stopping the spread of diseases such as influenza and plague. For three decades now, people still did not know why they were getting their disease. And for three decades now, doctors, epidemiologists, and laboratory researchers were trying to figure out how the disease was spread.[2]

Carson’s primary argument is that the ecosystem is unable to adjust and rebalance itself due to the rapidity of the introduction of chemicals into the environment. She points to the common knowledge that it took hundreds of millions of years for life to evolve to its current state. She goes on to explain how, given time (eons), the environment adjusted to natural dangers such as radiation emitted from certain rocks and short-wave radiation from the sun, but that it is impossible for the earth to adjust and rebalance in the face of man-made threats in the relative miniscule timeframe of decades. Her appeal is both logical and emotional. Logically, chemicals sprayed on croplands, forests or gardens will kill not just “pests” but other living organisms, and that some amount of these chemicals will end up in ground water, causing problems for anyone or anything that depends on this water. Emotionally if the possibility of permanent gene damage, which cause deformities, cancers, and early death, is not enough to encourage a second look at this issue then there is no hope for the planet’s future.

In her essay Rachel Carson targets anyone who will listen as her audience. She wants to inform human beings of the effects chemicals have on the environment. Rachel Carson’s audience had little knowledge of the effects radiation and pesticides might have on nature or to themselves. She successfully enlightened her audience to the harm man was causing to the environment not only presently, she also wrote of future ramifications. She predicts “Future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by methods that contaminated the entire environment…?” (Carson 615). This statement might make her audience scrutinize their actions through the eyes of future generations.

Viruses, Plagues, and History, written by Michael Oldstone, is an insightful and highly educational book that details the history of, that’s right, viruses and plagues. Through typically dry, yet engaging prose, Oldstone recounts what seems like all of it while simultaneously bringing to light the contributions of those brave scientists who asked themselves, “why.” He focuses his attention on some of the most notable viruses such as smallpox, yellow fever, measles, polio, and later he focuses on more contemporary battles against disease.

The pandemic struck the world and infected 1/3 of earth’s human population, killing over 50 million humans. The world’s top doctors have never witnessed anything of this killing magnitude besides the bubonic plague of 1348 but the transmissibility is of nothing they’ve ever seen in their lifetime or of recorded history. People abruptly became aware of the importance of health, and need of medicine and cleanliness.

Doctors, churches and government were powerless against the disease. The only way to escape the infection was to avoid contact with infected persons and contaminated objects.(paraphrase) (Therefore, some cities set up the policy to prevent strangers from entering their cities, particularly, merchants and Jews. The discrimination of Jewish population became another major problem. The people laid the blame of the plague at the feet of the Jews.)

Different environments that people come from cause people to have varying perspectives of that environment around them. The perspective that people have is a product of the experiences and the impact that those experiences have on a person’s approach to the trials and tribulations of life. Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood, is a novel about a post-apocalyptic world in which the scientific approach to the world clashes with a more naturalistic approach. Crake represents an idealistic view of the world shown by the way he strives for perfections. He believed that in their current form, humans were far from perfect because of the undesirable traits they possessed and devoted his life to fix this inherent problem in humanity by creating the Crakers. Oryx displays an optimistic view of the world on the surface but can be taken as pessimism at times because she never attempts to improve her situation at all. In many ways, she embodies many of the aspects that Crake sees as flaws in human being such as emotional attachments she has with people and how she always seems to find a positive way to view the situation she is in. As the story progresses, it is clear that Jimmy is influenced by Oryx and Crake in how he views the world and in what direction he should guide the Crakers. He values the human element that is present in humanity but also sees the importance of scientific advancements. Through the portrayal of the characters, Atwood is showing how the values of each character

Socrates once said, “The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.” While knowledge can be justifiably good through the use of learning how to help others, it can also be horribly dangerous. Society nowadays uses knowledge to classify the people who are worthy of greatness and those who are not. It is in these classifications that the state of human relationships is greatly tested because of inequality. In Margaret Atwood’s novel, Oryx and Crake, two of the main themes are academic importance and the state of human relationships. In the culture that Atwood creates, if an individual does not possess the proper intellect that measures up to societies standards, that individual will be ostracized and deemed worthless, and their social life will

In Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake we see the cause and effect of how our childhood and how we are raised has a large correlation to what type of adult we become. Through the character of Jimmy and later his new persona Snowman, the reader is shown the detrimental effects of an abandoned childhood. Not only do Jimmy’s poor choices in his adult life have a clear link to his neglected and unguided childhood they also create an adult that is emotionally damaged and unable to see the right path in his life even when he wants to.

As I first started to read ‘Oryx and Crake’, I was somewhat skeptical of whether or not I would enjoy reading it. The first chapter confused me with unusual words that I have never heard or seen before. Whenever I read something it is usually a book or magazine that I plan on reading or that is based on actual facts on a certain subject such as history or sports related. This book came as a surprise as I started to read it because it was not as hard to understand as I thought it would be and was actually quite enjoyable. The symbols in this book can mean many different things based on what the reader believes since religion plays a big part in it.

In the book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s main concern is the widespread use of synthetic pesticides and their impact on the environment. Carson concentrates on a commonly used pesticide in the 1950s called DDT. She opposes the indiscriminate spraying of DDT because it has profound consequences on the environment, humans and animals. Carson collected information about how the DDT can cause cancer in humans, harm animals such as birds and remained in the environment for long periods of time. Subsequently, the chemicals in the pesticides are extremely harmful so she tries to raise awareness and convince others that there are better alternatives.

Another instance where Crake’s viewpoint on the changing society is when he and Jimmy are discussion the prevention of illnesses. Crake explains to Jimmy that companies create vaccines for illnesses, however, if they were to cure all illnesses there would no longer be a need for the pharmaceutical companies. Jimmy says that they will simply keep discovering new diseases, and Crake responds with, “’Not discovering,’ they’re creating them.’” (Attwood 211). Instead of finding cures for extant diseases, the companies create new illnesses to keep the necessity of their vaccines high. The greed shown by these companies is part of the reason why Crake wants to create a new world. Crake’s goal for society was to optimize it as greatly as possible.

This book was focused on the concern of pesticides that industries, along with us as individuals, have been dumping (both knowingly and unknowingly) into water. Carson was concerned that the chemicals which the farmers spread on their fields, and even the chemicals we use in our homes (among others), in the end, might come back around and harm us. The beginning of the book tells a story of a place, that was once so beautiful, turned dead and ugly due to a “strange blight that crept over the area” and destroyed everything. Later in the book, she goes on to explain that chemicals, particularly one known as DDT, are the major cause of environmental damage and the near extinction of

As humans, we have always been trying to gain control over nature, chemicals being one of the ways we have attempted this. Carson also explains that most of the problems we try to control with chemicals is caused by our own doing, an example being living in unsanitary conditions or accidentally bringing over new insects when we are shipping things from place to place. Then as we all know, when this book was written the solve-all solution to this problem was to spray DDT all over everything. People believed that this stuff was going to make their lives better and insect free. She even gives an example of

Margaret Atwood creates a haunting and beautiful piece describing the experience a sad child goes through. She structures her poem by using five stanzas; two stanzas consisting of five lines, then one stanza with ten lines, and ending with two stanzas consisting of five lines. She uses simple yet powerful diction, tone, metaphors, similes, symbolism, and imagery to show the unknown speaker giving advice to a sad child. Her message/theme is sadness is a part of life and there are different ways to deal with it, but when death comes the thing that one is being sad about doesn’t matter.