WOLVOGS, PIGOONS AND CRAKERS - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 171

transitional narrative space for the discussion of current biotechnological
philosophies and practices in Western society and where they might lead to in the
not-so-distant future' (Warkentin, 2009: 152). Atwood's novel, then, acts as both
an account of present-day practices and as a warning of the unforeseen or ignored
dangers arising from such experiments.
Critically, a commercial dynamic underpins and finances the genetic work. The
experiments carried out are undertaken in sealed communities or Compounds
owned by companies whose names evoke the merging of biotechnology and
business: OrganInc; HelthWyzer; RejoovenEsence. These corporations compete
to satisfy a seemingly insatiable desire on the part of humans for food and eternal
youth, the latter recognised by Crake as a response to '[g]rief in the face of inevit-
able death . . . The wish to stop time' (Atwood, 2004: 352). The desire to prolong
human life might in some ways involve a conservative dimension, and in this sense
the development of pigoons with multiple organs that can be transplanted into
humans might involve a form of preservation. Yet the other driver towards endless
consumption inevitably and rapidly exhausts the planet's resources. The suspicion
increases that these forces are merging, so despite claims from OrganInc that the
pigoons are not being used for bacon and sausages:
as time went on and the coastal aquifiers turned salty and the northern
permafrost melted and the vast tundra bubbled with methane, and the drought
in the midcontinental plains region went on and on, and the Asian steppes
turned to sand dunes, and meat became harder to come by, some people had
their doubts. Within OrganInc Farms itself it was noticeable how often bacon
and ham sandwiches and pork pies turned up on the staff café menu. Andre's
Bistro was the official name of the café, but the regulars called it Grunts. When
Jimmy had lunch there with his father, as he did when his mother was feeling
harried, the men and women at other tables would make jokes in bad taste.
'Pigoon pie again,' they would say.
(ibid.: 29)
This especially upsets Jimmy 'because he thought of the pigoons as creatures very
much like himself' (ibid.: 29). Given that their organs are being transplanted into
humans, Jimmy's childhood concern raises perplexing questions about the ethics
of xenotransplantation, as well as attendant debates regarding animal rights and
species differentiation. Placing these considerations within the framework of rapid
environmental degradation caused by humans creates an even more problematic,
confronting and morally uncertain scenario, something the novel as a whole does
not attempt to resolve. Oryx and Crake asks questions of readers given a peculiar
though not impossible situation, but does not presume to answer them.
The breaking down of different sorts of defining lines, between spaces as well
as species, remains an important aspect of the uncertainties Atwood consciously
constructs, something she sees Wells also attempting in The Island of Dr Moreau . In