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Old Beginnings: The Re-Inscription of Masculine Domination at the New Millennium in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

Semenovich, Lacie M.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1231430843

Abstract Details

2008, Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
This essay analyzes the role of masculine domination in the twenty-first century as portrayed in Margaret Atwood’s 2003 novel of speculative fiction, Oryx and Crake. I argue that Atwood’s uncharacteristic choice of male primary characters highlights the masculine/feminine and the human/nature binaries in order to critique the destructiveness of a continued masculine domination of nature and the feminine. I utilize Donna Haraway’s theory of speculative fiction as an alternative space in which we can begin to explore new relationships with nature to critique Atwood’s novel. In my first chapter, I posit that Atwood utilizes Judeo-Christian allusions to situate the novel within the framework of biblical hierarchy. In my second chapter, I show that Atwood inverts the symbol of the monster in order to illustrate the continued domination of nature and the feminine and to designate the masculine as monstrous through its appropriation of nature and the feminine. My third chapter explores the boundary crossing of the genetically altered Crakers as an attempt to reconstruct the social body that ultimately fails because of Crake’s embeddedness in a culture of masculine domination. While some critics read Jimmy/Snowman as the possibility for humanity’s redemption, my fourth chapter argues that he actually reinscribes an ideology of masculine domination into the Craker culture through his mythologies and ritualistic teachings. I contend that Atwood’s characters fail to realize the true possibility of change in the “elsewhere” she creates by virtue of their inability to cross the boundary of their own Judeo-Christian centered ideology which acts as a critique of the West’s current culture of consumer driven environmental degradation.
Jennifer Jeffers, PhD (Advisor)
Gary Dyer, PhD (Committee Member)
Jeff Karem, PhD (Committee Member)
68 p.
Canadian Literature
Margaret Atwood; Oryx and Crake

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Semenovich, L. M. (2008). Old Beginnings: The Re-Inscription of Masculine Domination at the New Millennium in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake [Master's thesis, Cleveland State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1231430843

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Semenovich, Lacie. Old Beginnings: The Re-Inscription of Masculine Domination at the New Millennium in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. 2008. Cleveland State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1231430843.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Semenovich, Lacie. "Old Beginnings: The Re-Inscription of Masculine Domination at the New Millennium in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake." Master's thesis, Cleveland State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1231430843

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

csu1231430843
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© 2008, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Cleveland State University and OhioLINK.