There are many spiritual and Christian metaphors in both “ The Year of the Flood ” and “ Oryx and Crake ” . What is most interesting to see, though, is the thought of Snowman as the lone homo, as a subsister, and most significantly as a representation of the scriptural `serpent ‘ . Snowman finds himself animating the Genesis narrative from the position of his current quandary: Crake and Oryx are the Gods who have created them, he says, and sacrificed themselves so that their kids might populate. There are besides metaphors for The Garden of Eden. The Crakers-nude, inexperienced person, and sculpted-might be seen as go forthing the Garden of Eden, but in being bare and guiltless, refers to Adam and Eve and being born without original wickedness. Besides, in these novels, Jimmy can be compared to the snake and the fruit from the narrative of Adam and Eve ; taking the Crakers off from Paradice, which really saved them in the terminal. Atwood is seeking to emphasize that the snake in the Garden of Eden saved us alternatively of led to our ruin.
Atwood ‘s primary end is non merely to depict the planetary horror of a devastated environment and its deductions for world. Using current environmental and scientific experimentation as her get downing points, she extrapolates into revelatory phantasy, making an eerie universe which is still recognizably near to our ain. Alternating between the nameless catastrophe in which Snowman finds himself at the beginning of the novel and his flashbacks to his young person and early maturity with Crake, she brings a blue future-world to life, salvaging the account of the calamity which wrought this desolation till the terminal.
It is in these representations of Snowman that I believe Atwood is doing a unequivocal statement as to whether God created adult male or whether adult male creates God. Undoubtedly Atwood is proposing that adult male necessarily, despite of himself, creates God, with or without outside aid. It seems that throughout the novel there is an drawn-out metaphor of Snowman as assorted figures from the Christian Bible. The first figure that Snowman can be said to stand for is that of Adam, the first adult male, though the similarities between the two characters do non follow the same chronology. Just as Adam is given the animate beings as comrades to look over, likewise Crake has ensured that the Crakers and Jimmy are both left in the freshly re-created universe as comrades.
Another strong resemblance and drama on words can be observed in the Christian narrative of original wickedness and Crake ‘s mass devastation of humanity. In Genesis, God sets aside one fruit tree and bids Adam non to touch or eat from it, as a consequence of Adam ‘s treachery, God casts him out of Eden, and forces hardship on him for the remainder of his yearss. Likewise, Jimmy is to the full aware the first clip he meets Oryx that she is away bounds to him, yet his treachery of Crake ultimately consequences in his go forthing Paradice and forces assorted adversities on him. Last, in the Snowman-as-Adam device, there is a realisation that the comrades which have been assigned by a higher power are deficient, and the undermentioned despairing demand for comrades that are closer on the evolutionary concatenation. For Adam, this comrade was Eve. Throughout Atwood ‘s fresh Snowman is perfectly despairing for some comrade, person more understanding than the Crakers, or better than his ain deteriorating head to maintain him company. And though Snowman finally does happen people of his ain species, he can non make up one’s mind whether to put on the line their friendly relationship.
Atwood ‘s portraiture of Snowman as the last subsister of Homosapiens, compelled by his promise to take attention of the Paradice undertaking in Crake ‘s absence, has important similarities to the Christian myth of Noah and the Ark. The accelerator of events in the Christian myth is adult male ‘s unfairness to fellow adult male and God, and similarly in Oryx and Crake the accelerator is Jimmy ‘s treachery to Crake, which broken down, shows both adult male ‘s evildoing against adult male and God. As one of the elite, elegant heads of society, Crake doubtless has godlike qualities. Through the technological progresss made by him and his equals, Crake is able to command and change creative activity, . “ ..to create wholly chosen babes that would integrate any characteristic, physical or mental or religious, that the purchaser might wish to choose. ” ( Atwood, 304 ) This godlike context parallels non merely adult male ‘s ( Jimmy ‘s ) evildoing against God ( Crake ) but besides god ‘s bid that adult male guarantee the continuation of creative activity. Just as Noah marched all the animate beings in 2 into the Ark, so Snowman leads the Crakers, . “ ..the adult females and kids, with a file of work forces to either side ” to the coast ( 350 ) .
Possibly the most easy seen similarity between Snowman and the patriarch Noah is that each has been specially selected by a higher power to last the desolation that follows: Noah tucked safely in the Ark, and Snowman wholly immune to the JUVE virus due to the vaccinum he had been taking all the piece. Last, the stoping of the novel reaffirms the terminal consequence of the Great Flood myth, that through the desolation of one universe, and the choice of a subsister to guarantee the continuation of some part of creative activity, a new universe is created.
Last and most significantly is the converting metaphor of Snowman playing the portion of the scriptural snake. Throughout the fresh Crake has repeatedly mentioned, and non accidentally, that any signifier of symbolic thought will finally take to the ruin of the Crakers. In Crake ‘s version of Eden there is no room for art, faith, organized authorities, or sexual defeat. It seems that no Oklahoman does Snowman makes initial contact with the Crakers that he is already presenting thoughts which Crake would happen questionable, thoughts which the Crakers may in clip come to inquiry, as we question spiritual tenet today. He starts by concealing the truth of what truly happened and why the Crakers must go forth Paradice. It is besides really interesting to observe in this context that Snowman is taking the Crakers out of Paradice and into a universe which is a barren. He deifies both Oryx and Crake, and in the interim has kept his prevarications congruent. But what will go on when he necessarily trips over his ain prevarications and the Crakers begin to oppugn him as a false prophesier?
As I antecedently stated I believe that Atwood is proposing that adult male necessarily creates God with or without outside aid. Even after Crake has all but wiped the slate clean of humanity and its thoughts, Snowman still manages to destroy Crake ‘s vision fleetly, seeding the seeds of faith amongst the Crakers. Yet this leads to a instead interesting argument: whether or non the Crakers would hold finally created faith or at the really least art themselves, irrespective of Snowman ‘s intervention.
I believe that Atwood is noticing on the fact that it is adult male ‘s nature to be experiential, to inquire where he came from, and who created creative activity, and that it is natural to contrive possible replies to these inquiries when none are apparent. For illustration, as Snowman returns after his raid back into the Compound he finds that the Crakers have created an graven image of him and are intoning his name in a manner which sounds like ‘Amen ‘ , “ next they ‘d be contriving graven images, and funerals, and sculpt goods, and the hereafter, and wickedness… ” ( 361 ) . Either manner you look at Snowman, as a spiritual patriarch or a representation of the scriptural snake, he is still perverting the Crakers with his false tenet.