A Foreshadow on Today’s Society as Seen Through Atwood’s Oryx and Crake
April 25, 2010
Cosmetic Surgery Obsession:
A foreshadow on today’s society as seen through Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.
In today’s society, the one thing most stressed about is one’s outer appearance. It doesn’t matter how smart one is or how talented you are, if you have beauty then you have the world. Margaret Atwood, author of Oryx and Crake, focuses her novel around a society where most companies promote a better outer appearance for people. People would spend every spare dollar to get wrinkle free skin, so that they can be young looking old people. The “Crakers” were made to have no human imperfection, which is the cause that makes people feel inferior. Free experimental procedures enabled people to look younger at any risk because it was free. Lastly in Atwood’s society, cosmetic procedures have become so normalized that one can never tell what is or what isn’t real. Today’s society has become so fixated on having procedures, such as plastic surgery, that it has become an obsession to be beautiful. Atwood’s prediction on how society will become obsessed with cosmetic procedures is accurate because of the path our society is headed. According to the research, people are on the path to a plastic surgery obsessed society, because they feel like their looks are inferior, people are oblivious to the risks because of the cheap procedures that are out there, and it is no longer considered a taboo. Atwood describes a future where everyone’s flaws can be fixed with a simple procedure. Today’s society is leading up to this life because people feel like their looks are inferior to everyone else’s. In the future that Atwood predicted, the author mentions how Crake created a super human free from all the flaws and imperfections people suffer from today. In one shot, the Crakers were made of what society thought a perfect person should look like. In the novel, Snowman describes the Crakers saying that “They’re every known color…no ripples of fat around their waists, no
Cosmetic Surgery Obsession:
A foreshadow on today’s society as seen through Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.
In today’s society, the one thing most stressed about is one’s outer appearance. It doesn’t matter how smart one is or how talented you are, if you have beauty then you have the world. Margaret Atwood, author of Oryx and Crake, focuses her novel around a society where most companies promote a better outer appearance for people. People would spend every spare dollar to get wrinkle free skin, so that they can be young looking old people. The “Crakers” were made to have no human imperfection, which is the cause that makes people feel inferior. Free experimental procedures enabled people to look younger at any risk because it was free. Lastly in Atwood’s society, cosmetic procedures have become so normalized that one can never tell what is or what isn’t real. Today’s society has become so fixated on having procedures, such as plastic surgery, that it has become an obsession to be beautiful. Atwood’s prediction on how society will become obsessed with cosmetic procedures is accurate because of the path our society is headed. According to the research, people are on the path to a plastic surgery obsessed society, because they feel like their looks are inferior, people are oblivious to the risks because of the cheap procedures that are out there, and it is no longer considered a taboo. Atwood describes a future where everyone’s flaws can be fixed with a simple procedure. Today’s society is leading up to this life because people feel like their looks are inferior to everyone else’s. In the future that Atwood predicted, the author mentions how Crake created a super human free from all the flaws and imperfections people suffer from today. In one shot, the Crakers were made of what society thought a perfect person should look like. In the novel, Snowman describes the Crakers saying that “They’re every known color…no ripples of fat around their waists, no
Cited: Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York: DoubleDay, 2005. Park, Michelle. "Transformers." CYBURR. 2005. Kent State University . 26 April, 2010. <http://burr.kent.edu/archives/2006/fall/Spring2005/index.html> Shapiro, Jeffrey Scott. "Our Sick Obsession With Plastic Surgery." Fox News. 2010. Fox News Network. 19 April, 2010. <http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/01/22/jeffrey-scott-shapiro-heidi-montag-plastic-surgery-addiction/>. Yates , Toni. "Dangers of black market plastic surgery." ABC Local News. 2010. ABC. 20 April, 2010. <http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7319205>