ABSTRACT

Margaret Atwood was in the midst of writing Oryx and Crake when her travel plans came to an abrupt halt on September 11, 2001, at Toronto's Lester Pearson Airport. She and all others saw that day the violence in the world's future. Atwood, however, saw that the real dangers might not be terrorists hijacking airplanes but in the power dynamics that were behind such dry topics as scientific research and pharmaceutical marketing. It is possible, however, based on evidence in the text, to argue that Crakes plan, like other pharmaceutical schemes, was to make a fortune by selling an antidote but that the pathogens accelerated spread thwarted that plan. The economic world of the novel was defined by imbalanced exchange power. When Crake decided to play God in creating a new human race and in destroying the existing one, he went beyond exchange power.