Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003) and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (2008) bear striking resemblances to each other. Both novels are set in an apocalyptic dystopian future; both novels use modern advances in the media as a central part of their plot; and both could be argued, in a way, to address the issues of male/female relationships. They are linked too by critical confusion over their genre. Are they both science fiction novels? Are they fantasies? Are they informed predictions of the fate of humanity? Atwood has always been adamant that her earlier novel The Handmaid’s Tale was what she terms “speculative fiction” (Tolan 235) and Tolan herself modifies this phrase (273) to call Oryx and Crake “a dystopian example of speculative fiction.” The same term might be used to describe The Hunger Games. Both novels are set in the future but act as warnings or commentaries on trends in contemporary society – the dangers inherent in the way we live now and developments in human social practice, technology and science. Both novels deal with feminism and post-colonialism, but in very different ways and with vastly different outcomes. These differences reflect the different preoccupations of Atwood and Collins, but also their intended audiences.
What caused the apocalyptic disaster is presented very differently in these novels. In fact, in The Hunger Games Collins never reveals what has happened to transform our world into the society we see depicted in the novel. In one sense it does not matter: Collins is more interested in presenting her bleak view of the future and developing the central plot concerning Katniss and Peeta. In Oryx and Crake, however, we are told in great detail through the flashbacks that Snowman has to his pre-apocalyptic past how and why the world changed so radically. Atwood does this because one of the developments she wants to attack and warn the reader about is biotechnology and the irresponsible use of genetic engineering. As Bouson (17) confirms:
Concerned in Oryx and Crake that we may be blindly entering a catastrophic post-human future, Atwood urges us to wake up to the ethical consequences of our embrace of biotechnology
Because of this we have to know that it was Glenn (known throughout the novel as Crake), who was responsible for the virtual annihilation of the human race, the creation of the Crakers (named after him), and the existence of the rakunks, pigeons and wolvogs. Collins touches on this fear too. In the arena where most of the action takes place the competitors face animals which have clearly been genetically modified to provide greater challenges to the human combatants.
The future worlds depicted in both novels differ sharply. Tolan has described Oryx and Crake as “not only post-modernist but post-human”: the destruction of the human race makes Oryx and Crake a far more bleak and unsettling novel. Snowman (Jimmy in his former life) depends on offerings of scraps of food from the Crakers, and for most of the novel he seems to be the only human to survive (Glenn having injected him with an antidote to the virus that he uses to destroy humanity). By contrast, in The Hunger Games humanity has survived the apocalypse and society (despite being radically different form our own) still exists. Katniss and Peeta live in a country called Panem (what is left of the USA); the country is ruled from the Capitol, which is a haven of privilege and wealth, surrounded by twelve impoverished areas: Katniss and Peeta come from Area 12. The fabric of our society has also survived the apocalypse: Peeta and Katniss take part in a reality television show called ‘The Hunger Games.’ In the show two representatives (one male, one female) from the outlying areas fight to the death live on television. The show’s concept originated from a rebellion of the poor areas against the centralized control; the two representatives from each area being the price, or “tribute”, that the areas must pay the Capitol for their earlier insurrection. From this description, it would seem that Collins is more concerned with the fear of over-powerful government, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the excesses of vicarious violence on television.
Each writer uses their characters differently to present their preoccupations, and it is here that we can see a concern with feminism and post-colonialism in both novels. Of Oryx, the woman that Jimmy and Glenn both fall in love with, Showalter (10) has written: “The elusive Oryx is the vehicle in the novel for Atwood’s indignation at child slavery, prostitution, sex tourism and other extreme forms of female victimization.” It is through the characterization of Oryx that Atwood addresses her feminist concerns. Jimmy first comes across the woman known as Oryx on an on-line child pornography website, and becomes obsessed with her appearance. Much later, as an adult she is paid by Crake to have sex with him, and also to instruct the Crakers (whom Crake creates before he kills off the human race). However, it is not at all certain that the adult Oryx is the same child that Jimmy lusted after as an adolescent. This lack of clarity over her identity is clearly part of Atwood’s thesis about the place of women in society: in a patriarchal society the identity and individuality of women is less important than their role as objects to be exploited for sexual purposes. Oryx becomes both Jimmy and Crake’s lover, and in the present Jimmy/Snowman is still haunted by nostalgic visions of her. However, from a feminist perspective, Jimmy’s fantasies are simply the necessary correlative to the self-delusion that comes from treating women as s ex objects – or at least the self-delusion that seeks to justify and excuse it.
Collins preoccupation with feminism is less profound than Atwood’s and more muted. Katniss survives the Hunger Games for so long because Collins endows her with traditionally ‘male’ characteristics: she fights adroitly and bravely; she shows initiative; and, when faced with threats and dangers, she can act ruthlessly – thus breaking gender stereotyping of how women and young girls should behave. Normally in the Games there is only one survivor. However, because Peeta has declared his love for Katniss on live television (they were acquainted back in Area 12), the producers of the show change the rules towards the end of the game so that two people can survive. This is presented by Collins as pure manipulation of the television audience who are invited to sympathize with Katniss and Peeta. [Katniss even worries that Peeta’s declaration of love was not real, but merely a ploy he was forced into by the show’s producers in order too increase human interest in the series and boost viewing figures.] However, the rule change encourages Katniss to seek Peeta out, and, when she finds him, he is wounded. The fact that she comes to his rescue is vital. Her practical skills as ahunter have been established by Collins in the opening few pages. She then nurses him back to health, gaining audience sympathy for being the compassionate nurse – a gender role the audience are happier to endorse. Clearly, Collins is also concerned with the way the media can manipulate how we think and feel, and how it is impossible to believe everything that we see, bit in the course of doing this, she creates in Katniss a young woman who overturns and defies expectations of gender behavior and this element of the story is strongly feminist.
Both novels can be seen from a post-colonial perspective as well. Sinha (101) observes that Snowman can be seen as the imperialist European, while the Crakers are the Other – in the sense that post-colonialism uses that term. Snowman is in some ways superior to the Crakers – he has to explain many things to them and they treat him with respect and as their God; the stories he tells them about Oryx start to become part of Craker mythology and, perhaps, the start of a new religion. Baumgartner and Davis (237) agree with this view: “Snowman invokes the purity of whiteness and the optimism of science and progress of European enlightenment.” However, this is Atwood’s point: the world Crake has created represents rather the nadir of European progress: the whole novel is a cautionary tale about “European” progress and its potentially damaging and threatening effects. If we take into account recent thinking on post-colonialism, then The Hunger Games also touches on this issue in an unexpected way. Zwinkler (111) argues that
the Imperial Age has given way to the Age of Globalization and the Bible, the flag and the gun that early colonizers brandished have been replaced by logos, brand names, global marketing. Thus, given the trans-national and trans-continental patterns of human economic migration, the old mechanisms of post-colonialism no longer apply.
And he continues to describe a world that is very similar to readers of The Hungry Games. Katniss’s first task at the start of the novel is to into the woods, armed with a bow and arrow to find food. Life at Capitol is rich and east compared with the Seam. Zwinkler comments:
The rich (no matter what country they live in) form a global community of gated, security-guarded enclaves, while the poor, no matter what their nationality, starve outside the gates.
Life in the Districts in the novel is a constant battle against starvation. From the beginning of the novel she is kindly disposed towards Peeta because his father is a baker and Peeta gives her food because her family are starving. In this way Collins is referring to widespread predictions of a global food crisis brought about partly by globalization and partly by a rapidly increasing world population. In terms of post-colonialism, the Capitol occupies the same relationship to the Areas as First World countries did to the undeveloped world. Katniss understands the society she lives in perfectly and comments sardonically early on, “District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety” (12). The repressive central government fears rebellion and virtually all weapons are illegal: electricity is limited to three hours in the evening; “almost no-one can afford doctors (14). Even the rules about how young people are chosen in the “reaping” – the lottery to decide who should represent their district at the games are all rigged against the poorest in society. Collins presents a society where the differences between rich and poor have become institutionalized so that they will never change and they have been fixed in geographical isolation from one another. This finds an echo in Oryx and Crake. The post-apocalyptic world that Atwood presents in the novel is frightening, but it is clear through Snowman’s flashbacks that society had already changed from the one we know to become eerily similar to the society of The Hunger Games. Crake lives in a compound separated from the rest of the population:
There was a security installation around the park, very tight, said Crake; even the Corpsmen were not allowed inside. Paradice had been his concept and he’d made that a condition when he’d agreed to actualize it.: he didn’t want a lot of heavy-handed ignoramuses poking into things they couldn’t understand (297).
Such compounds exist all over the world. So the society in Oryx and Crake, in its separation of rich and poor, resembles District 12 and the Capitol before Crake’s experiment occurs. Crake works for a multinational science corporation and is involved in work on genetic engineering. Apparently the world’s political leaders are especially interested in developing human beings with more “docility” (304), so that they can be more easily controlled – just as the Capitol controls the populations of the Districts in The Hunger Games.
Oryx and Crake and The Hunger Games are very different novels, partly because they are designed for different readers. Collins’ novel is aimed at teenagers and has been made into a film; the end of the novel is open-ended and, of course, Collins has continued the story with two more parts of what is now a trilogy. Atwood’s central character Snowman is weak and feeble, but Katniss is strong and determined. Having changed the rules of the games once, the makers of the show change them again so that when Katniss and Peeta are left alive they must fight one another to the death – despite the fact that the show has encouraged audience interest by exaggerating the “love” between Katniss and Peeta. In a remarkable show of brave defiance the two young people threaten to commit suicide rather than fight each other,: the makers of the show relent and they are declared joint winners. This independence of spirit and determination not to obey authority makes Katniss especially an admirable character. Despite Katniss’s doubts about the end of the novel where she is unsure how far she has been manipulated during the course of the games, and Haymitch warns her that she will now be the target of the authorities because she has shown such independent spirit, the ending is positive in the sense that she has survived. By contrast, Oryx and Crake ends on a note of uncertainty – but not because Atwood will write a sequel, but because Snowman is simply weak and indecisive, and does not know how to react to the discovery that other humans have survived Crake’s virus.
Both novels deal with feminism and with post-colonialism in its current guise as globalization, but the authors clearly have other preoccupations to. Both the novels warn about man’s experiments with biotechnology; both present a distrust and fear of repressive and authoritarian governments; both, but especially The Hunger Games, present a world of sharp and alarming divisions, literally physical divisions between rich and poor. Showalter (14) sums Atwood’s novel up in this way: “Overall the politics of Oryx and Crake are consistent with pacifism, feminism, environmentalism and anti-globalization.” The snae could be said of The Hunger Games.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret, Oryx and Crake. 2003. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Print.
Baumgartner, Holly Lynn & Davis, Roger. Hosting the Monster. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Print.
Bouson, J. Brooks. Margaret Atwood: The Robber Bride, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake. 2011. New York: Continuum International Publishing. Print.
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. 2008. New York: Scholastic. Print.
Showalter, Elaine. “The Snowman Cometh.” London Review of Books, Vol. 78, no. 7. July 24th, 2003. Print.
Sinha, Surita. Post-Colonial Women Writers: New Perspectives. 2008. New York: Atlantic Publishers. Print.
Tolan, Fiona. Margaret Atwood: Feminism and Fiction. 2007. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Print.
Zwinkler, Martin. Post-Post-Colonialism: The New World Order. 2011. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Print.
