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  • Essay / Genuine Love in an Artificial World

    Margaret Atwood creates a corrupt, futuristic world in Oryx and Crake that emphasizes technology and science, thus devaluing the role of emotion and connection in the company. Those who work in pursuit of scientific breakthroughs are considered elite, while those who are better suited to working in the arts and have a talent for words are less valued. These two different types of people are exemplified by the characters of Jimmy and Crake: Crake being the representation of the ideal scientific prodigy, while Jimmy symbolizes someone more emotional and artistic. They have radically opposing views on the value of emotion and approach relationships in different ways, but despite these differences, both characters ultimately experience love. Despite the lack of emphasis on emotional connection in Oryx and Crake's technological society, love proves to be an essential and irreplaceable aspect of the human experience for the novel's characters. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Throughout Oryx and Crake, characters demonstrate an inherent desire to feel emotions. As teenagers, Jimmy and Crake spent their time watching graphic videos on the Internet, such as child pornography and people being tortured. Looking back, Snowman says, “Shortcircuit.com, brainfrizz.com and deathrowlive.com were the best; they showed electrocutions and lethal injections. Once they legalized real-time coverage, the executed guys started putting it on camera” (Atwood, 83). This passage shows how insensitive boys are to horrible content. They view these morbid videos as entertaining or average, whereas in our society they would be considered difficult to watch. The fact that this content has been legalized in their society reveals that desensitization is not just happening to Jimmy and Crake in particular, but that it has happened to everyone. This is because creative expression and emotion are deemed unnecessary in the complexes where the scientific elite reside, so these people have no outlet to express their feelings. In essence, they become robots forced to devote all their energy to scientific research and mathematical calculations. This lack of emotional stimulation leads them to look for another way to feel something powerfully. So, they turn to graphic content. Even if these videos evoke feelings of disgust, fear, or sadness, they still evoke some sort of emotion, which is better than feeling nothing at all. The more gruesome it is, the more emotional it is, and so Jimmy and Crake turn to extremely violent videos for feeling. This demonstrates that people living in complexes will not willingly succumb to a flattening of their emotions and will fight to feel their emotions. Even though feeling emotions is devalued in their society, these people are unable to simply turn off the aspect of themselves that wants to feel. Therefore, it is clear that the experience of powerful emotion is what makes us human and what keeps people in complexes, especially Jimmy and Crake, from losing their humanity. Since love is a powerful emotional experience, it proves to be an inherent human experience. desire in the novel. This is demonstrated most effectively throughout Crake's character, because he is the most scientifically motivated and adamantly against emotion in the novel. He considers humans as.