Platonic Influence in Oryx and Crake: Reality and Art

Oryx and Crake is a speculative, according to Margaret Atwood, dystopian novel, dealing mainly with the idea of humanity and the ethics of bioengineering.

In her work, Margaret Atwood draws from several sources, including Hamlet (1599-1601), Paradise Lost (1667), Robinson Crusoe (1719), and Frankenstein (1818). In this paper, I will suggest that Plato’s philosophy could be another source of inspiration. As a result, Republic, Plato’s most famous work (approximately 374 B.C.), could be considered another intertextual reference.

Plato was the first Greek philosopher to talk about the lack of value in art. Surprisingly, at the beginning of his adult life, he was a poet and a dramatist himself. However, when he met Socrates, he burnt all his artistic works and turned to philosophy; he never wrote another verse (Kopidakis & Patrikiou, 35). There is no complete Platonic theory regarding art, which has made several scholars question whether he did in fact have a definite view about poetry (Greene, 1). However, this is an inherent characteristic of his works, connected with his scepticism towards written texts (Kopidakis & Patrikiou, 30). In the Republic, it is evident that he regards art as either useless or dangerous.

    For Plato, reality is multidimensional; there are four layers, as exemplified in the cave allegory. As Gocer describes, inside the cave, (at the lowest level of knowledge) one finds a group of chained men, forced to look at shadows that are created from a fire behind them. They are ignorant, uneducated and acquire “knowledge” based on the products of their senses, falsely thinking that what they see is the absolute reality (119). The objects whose shadows the men see are merely copies of the real objects that exist in Forms, carried by men hiding behind a tall wall. To exit the dark world of the cave, i.e., of incomplete knowledge, and access the world of Ideas, one needs to use the power of Noisis (thinking). In this allegory, the sun is the highest source of knowledge which transcends the human mind.

 For Plato, art is of the lowest quality, as it is the shadow of the objects and events of the world, which imitate the real Forms that exist in the perfect world of Ideas. (Karelis, 315). Art is simply an illusion -or even a delusion- a shadow of a copy of a Form and has thus nothing to offer. 

In Oryx and Crake, a similar diminishing attitude can be found. The two boys’ graduation and subsequent university enrolment indicate the status of science and art. “The brainiacs were tussled over by the best EduCompounds” (Atwood, 202) while “Jimmy was knocked down at last to the Martha Graham Academy'' (Atwood, 102). Science, in comparison to art, is highly respected and valued, as indicated by the choice of wording. “In Jimmy's world, the condition of the liberal arts is dire” (Laflan, 112). “Martha Graham was falling apart” (Atwood, 109) notices Jimmy when he sees the building for the first time. The poor condition of the infrastructure is connected to the low financial position of the Academy because of the marginalization of art and humanities and their lack of practical value: “a lot of what went on at Martha Graham was like studying Latin, or book-binding: pleasant to contemplate in its way, but no longer central to anything” (Atwood,110). “Compared with Martha Graham, Watson-Crick was a palace” (Antwood, 117). It was well-maintained, modern, beautiful and heavily guarded. 

Crake is indifferent towards art as well. For instance, during his conversation with Jimmy about courtship behaviour, the latter brings up great poets such as Petrarch and Jonne Donne, who have been inspired by what Crake calls mismatching. Eventually, Jimmy asks him what he has got against art. His response indicates that he regards it as a kind of public self-pleasure, even though he supposedly has nothing against it:

“People can amuse themselves any way they like. If they want to play with themselves in public, whack off over doodling, scribbling, and fiddling, it’s fine with me”. (99) 

Plato also claims that art is dangerous, because of the potential negative influence it exerts. In his ideal Republic, the only art that can exist is the strictly censored one, as it is the responsibility of the State to protect the minds of the youth from the wrong ideas. According to Rucker, this censorship is thus justified to an extent. Since the Guardians need to be “of a certain character”, so that they can successfully rule the state, it is of vital importance to protect them from perversions (168-169). Consequently, in Plato’s thinking, art has a very pragmatic value: to help produce good men by educating appropriately the minds of the young. There is no art for art’s sake.

Similarly, in Oryx and Crake, art has acquired some value, through new departments, such as Problematics, that serve the science world by advertising new “miraculous” products. Art becomes useful when it serves the big corporations, but at the same time dangerous. To better illustrate this, the cave allegory can be used. Jimmy, through his advertising career, becomes the person holding the copies of the real objects. His knowledge of the products is incomplete, but higher than the one of the common people, who only have access to the shadow of the copy of the real object, i.e., the advertisement or the image. Outside the cave, scientists who develop the products have access to the Forms (meaning that they know what the product actually does), while Crake has the ultimate knowledge, since he is the one orchestrating the world-changing plan. 

“Image and Reality become nearly impossible to distinguish” (Laflen, 99).  According to Elkins, "[i]t is difficult to break through the wall of usual seeing and begin to discover how many other things there are to see. It requires practice and special information- you have to know what you're looking for- and it also requires energy, since it involves special concentration". The process Elkins describes is closely connected with Plato’s Noisis; the prisoners that escape use the power of thinking to ascend from the stairs, until they are out of the cave and into the world of Ideas, where they can find the truth. For the majority of people, the highest level of reality and truth will remain inaccessible.

Plato and Crake regard art as useless and dangerous because of its potential corruptive qualities. After appropriate filtering, it becomes, however, for Plato, a valuable teaching tool and for Crake, a necessary marketing tool. 

 

Bibliography

Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake: A Novel. First Anchor Books edition. New York: Anchor Books, 2004. Print.

Elkins, James. The Object Stares Back. New York: Simon, 1996

Gocer, Asli. “The Puppet Theater in Plato's Parable of the Cave.” The Classical Journal, vol. 95, no. 2, 1999, pp. 119–129. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3298308.

Greene, William Chase. “Plato's View of Poetry.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 29, 1918, pp. 1–75. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/310558.

Karelis, Charles. “Plato on Art and Reality.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 34, no. 3, 1976, pp. 315–321. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/430013.

Kopidakis & Patrikiou. Ancient Greek: Philosophikos logos. Computer Technology Institute and Press "Diophantus". Pg. 27-39. Print.

Laflen, Angela. “‘There's a Shock in This Seeing’: The Problem of the Image in ‘The Handmaid's Tale’ and ‘Oryx and Crake.’” Amerikastudien / American Studies, vol. 54, no. 1, 2009, pp. 99–120. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41158414. 

Rucker, Darnell. “Plato and the Poets.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 25, no. 2, 1966, pp. 167–170., www.jstor.org/stable/429388.