Science Vs The Arts

One of the things that really struck me the most was how Margaret Atwood discusses Jimmy’s and Crake’s education in her novel Oryx and Crake. Atwood separates Jimmy and Crake by the two different aspects of knowledge, science and the arts. For instance, in the beginning of the chapter “Applied Rhetoric,” Jimmy and Crake end up going separate ways to college because of having different kinds of knowledge. However, the way Atwood describes the school Jimmy goes to is extraordinary because the description reminds me of how art and humanities programs are starting to die out. For example, she says, “the Bilbao-ripoff cast-concrete buildings leaked, the lawns were mud, […] and there were no recreational facilities apart from a swimming pool that looked and smelled like a giant sardine can” but goes on to describe some of the subjects Jimmy learns that suit his interests (186-88). However, after Jimmy graduates, Atwood makes it clear to us that going to school for the arts is not going to land Jimmy a decent job. This definitely reminds me of our education system today because in my experience, people have given me weird looks because I said I wanted to be an English major. “Oh, are you going to teach?” Is the answer I get every time because most people assume that teaching is the only job English majors do, but that’s not true! Also, when we were discussing in class today about some of the reasons why people go to college and I agree with majority of the reasons because if someone doesn’t go to college, then they’re considered a low-life. This is misleading because I know someone who decided that they didn’t want to continue college because of worrying about having a good major to succeed, but they managed to find a suitable job without having to worry about getting a degree. In this case, due to our society having such high standards, kids today feel reluctant to go to college because of this expectation that our society has created upon us.

One last thing that was interesting from this chapter was how science and the arts are not in one institution, they’re in separate institutions. I believe Atwood is saying something here because currently, we have separate departments for each study, but they’re in the same institution. I wonder if we continued to bash liberal arts programs, there will be schools like in Oryx and Crake that only would have that desired subject. If this happens, our society would end up experiencing less diversity and  will create more ignorance within our society. Overall, Atwood makes some pretty strong points so far in Oryx and Crake because she takes these lesser known issues in our society such as education and expands on them in order to tell her audiences that these are the issues we need to start paying attention to more.

Works Cited:

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