Is the character Crake a hero or a villain in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake - Essay Example

of annihilation also involved the establishment of a new world inhabited by a peaceful, herbivorous, environment-friendly variety of human-like beings. He created them and kept them safe in a dome and then set out to annihilate the entire race of mankind. His friend Jimmy, the narrator-protagonist of the novel is spared to take care of Crake’s new creations called ‘Crakers’. My contention is that with all his super-human brain powers and wisdom Crake is ultimately a villain, not a hero. Crake, unlike Jimmy, is not open-hearted.

He is treacherous though in his own way affectionate towards Jimmy, even appreciative of his essential goodness. But he has no qualms in using Jimmy for his own ends. He betrays the trust Jimmy puts in him. Jimmy loses his mother under curious circumstances at a very young age. His father, an outstanding genographer who works happily for an organ-producing multinational firm, exerts only a mild impact on him. He is more attached to his mother, an embittered microbiologist who in disillusionment throws away her job and becomes an activist, demanding a going back to nature.

Crake is Jimmy’s one and only best friend in the whole world, even after the holocaust and his killing of Crake, Jimmy regards him so (Oryx and Crake, 391). Jimmy shoots him in panic, shock and confusion. But he never lets go the responsibility Crake thrusts on him and never blames him. In contrast Crake keeps him under constant surveillance from the very beginning and entraps him quite cleverly into his own schemes, using him and his innate peculiarities to benefit his own schemes (376). He is a failure as a friend, though Jimmy-turned-Snowman is still clinging to his memories.

Crake is a betrayer. His treatment of Oryx, just like that of Jimmy is a pathetic testimony of his deep-rooted harshness of mind. He has advanced methods of surveilling the activities of others. Oryx is not aware of it. He tells her that his Blyss Pluss Pill would pave the way to the