Publication: Margaret Atwood’s “Oryx and Crake” as a Critique of Technological Utopianism
Loading...
Date
2021
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
While there are major works tracing the themes of belonging and longing for home in contemporary
fiction, there is no current study adequately addressing the connection between dystopian novel and
nostalgia. This paper aims to illustrate how the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood uses nostalgia as a
framework to level a critique against technological utopianism in her dystopian novel Oryx and Crake
(2003). The first novel in Atwood’s “MaddAddam Trilogy” problematizes utopian thought by focusing on
the tension between two utopian projects: the elimination of all suffering and the perfection of human
beings by discarding their weaknesses. Despite the claims of scientific objectivity and environmentalism,
the novel exposes the religious and human-centered origins of Crake’s technological utopian project.
Atwood’s Oryx and Crake is an ambiguous work of science fiction that combines utopian and dystopian
elements into its narrative to criticize utopian thought.
Description
Keywords
Dystopian fiction, Margaret Atwood, Nostalgia, Oryx and Crake, Technological utopianism, Distopik kurgu, Nostalji, Teknolojik ütopyacılık, Oryx ve Crake