Margaret Atwood's Oryx And Crake

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Margaret Atwood’s use of language in her novel, Oryx and Crake, portrays the decline of civilization. Words are necessary to communicate and express ideas and once words are forgotten or invented and modified, they lose meaning. In Jimmy’s world, establishments and animals are created and they are named based on familiar words. RejoovenEsence, AnooYoo, NooSkins, OrganInc, pigoons, rakunks, and wolvogs are technological advances that were created to benefit the human race. These invented words and advances in technology were given more attention than other words and artistic language. The slow demise of language coincides with the demise of civilization. As a summer job in a library, Jimmy had to decide which books were worthy enough to keep around, “going through old books and earmarking them for destruction while deciding which should remain on earth in digital form” (Atwood 241). Even in a library the amount of books had to be minimized. Ever since Jimmy was young, literature was being thrown out because it wasn’t as important as science and technology, and the books that were considered worthy, had to be made into digital format to appeal to the new technologically advanced society. Jimmy’s…show more content…
It took him a while to finally land a job. The job at AnooYoo paid little money and some even considered the job deplorable, “that AnooYoo was a collection of cesspool denizens who existed for no other reason than to prey on the phobias and void the bank accounts of the anxious and the gullible...touted as being able to cure depression, wrinkles, and insomnia all at the same time” (Atwood 247). The self-help books company was seen to be created to cure people of their problems, illustrating the fact that everything is created to help the human race. But, not even words can help the people that need it and that’s when people start to turn to technology for help and words are no longer

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