Views on the Relationship of the Individual and Society in Oryx and Crake, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and The Woman in the Dunes Robert Lee Jackson College

The relationship between society and the individual is presented in powerfully differing ways in the novels Oryx and Crake, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and The Woman in the Dunes. While Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake shows how the individual views society as a source of sadistic entertainment or wealth, Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao shows a relationship in which society rejects the individual. In turn, Kobo Abe’s The Woman in the Dunes shows a relationship in which society forces the individual into servitude.

Oryx and Crake presents a society in which individuals living in the time before “the flood” (this story’s apocalypse) have lost all sense of social ethics. The prevailing theme in this society seems to be sadism (in a non-sexual way); the major forms of entertainment for people involve the enjoyment of human suffering. The best examples of this are the two primary forms of entertainment that Crake and Jimmy enjoy in their youth: Internet games and Internet shows. Games such as “Barbarian Stomp,” “Blood and Roses,” and “Extinctathon” all pit society on one side and utter destruction on the other, with the side of utter destruction usually winning (77-81). Their enjoyment of such games shows...