Transhumanism in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake Trilogy and the Importance of Speculative Fiction

Abstract

I am exploring the concept of transhumanism and human identity in Margaret Atwood‘s Oryx and Crake, the Year of the Flood and MaddAddam. In her ustopian world as she calls it, a mix between dystopian and utopian, people are no longer the central point of earth life. They are dying, being hunted and destroyed and another species has developed that is far more superior to them, the Crakers. I discuss the changing set of values of what it means to be transhuman or believe in transhumanism in an increasingly hostile environment, and how this is a theme in speculative fiction such as Atwood‘s trilogy. Transhumanists are searching for the next step in the development of human beings. They believe that technological advancement and genetic engineering will be the tool that brings humankind closer to immortality. My arguments on the similarities between transhumanism and Christianity are crucial for the understanding of this newly emerging belief system. I have found parallel eschatological reasoning in Atwood‘s transhumanist Crakers, but also in 21st century transhumanist believers. They believe that salvation will come by the hands of scientists, and that they will survive the manmade era of the Antrhopocene by entering the transhumanist realm.