Frankenstein and Oryx and Crake Lecture Mastery Flashcards

A vocabulary-style flashcard set covering character functions, symbols, motifs, and authorial choices for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.

Satiate (Walton's Metaphor)

Walton's use of this term makes intellectual curiosity resemble an appetite that demands satisfaction, suggesting that discovery can become insatiable rather than rationally bounded.

The Hurricane (Victor's Simile)

A metaphor representing scientific ambition as a force that overwhelms rational control; Victor is no longer directing his search for success but is being carried by it.

Gothicised Scientific Progress

Shelley's transformation of creation into an event associated with death rather than birth, established through the setting of a 'dreary night of November.'

Adam vs. Fallen Angel (Antithesis)

Biblical allusions used by the Creature to contrast his position as an innocent creation entitled to care with his reality as a rejected rebel produced by abandonment.

The Blasted Tree

An extended metaphor for Victor's psychological destruction, connecting his personal ruin to the same destructive, lightning-based forces he once admired.

The Blind De Lacey (Symbolism)

A character whose lack of sight paradoxically enables 'moral vision,' as he responds to the Creature's words rather than the physical appearance that causes prejudice in others.

The Arctic (Setting)

A site that serves as the ultimate boundary of human ambition, representing the destructive endpoint where landscapes of achievement turn into landscapes of destruction.

Epistolary Form (Frankenstein)

A narrative structure using letters that highlights Walton's isolation and ambition while framing the novel as a cautionary lesson for an absent reader.

The Wall (Symbolism)

A physical barrier between the Creature and the De Laceys that represents the social boundary separating an outsider from humanity.

Justine's Execution

An event highlighting that institutional justice systems may punish visible suspects rather than actual perpetrators, prioritizing social appearances over moral truth.

Crake's Scientific Rationalism

An ideology assuming that technological capacity and logical consistency grant humans the moral authority to biological design and redesign life.

ChickieNobs (Satire)

Genetically engineered organisms reduced to their economic function as 'mouths,' used to expose the ethical consequences of treating life as raw material.

BlyssPluss (Symbol)

A consumer product that disguises mass death and sterilization as individual pleasure and health enhancement, condensing the novel's critique of bio-capitalism.

Pleeblands

Chaotic, poorer environments outside corporate wall protection that represent how social inequality becomes geographically institutionalized.

Oryx as a 'Cipher'

The character's narrative opacity and refusal to provide a certain past, which serves as a form of resistance against both Jimmy’s and Crake's attempts to objectify or define her.

Pigoons (Symbolic Reversal)

Engineered creatures designed to grow human-compatible organs that ultimately become feral predators, illustrating the loss of control over unintended technological consequences.

Zero Hour (Circular Motif)

An ambiguous closing phrase indicating a lack of definitive ethical resolution and suggesting that humanity may reproduce its old patterns.

Non-linear Chronology (Oryx and Crake)

A structural choice mirroring Snowman's fragmented cognition and the 'belatedness' of human understanding regarding the consequences of environmental systems.

Snowman (Identity Construction)

A name Jimmy adopts to separate his present survivor identity from his former self, illustrating that identity is performative rather than fixed.

Euphemistic Corporate Naming

The use of titles like 'OrganInc Farms' or 'RejoovenEsense' to mask the reality of biological exploitation behind sterile or administrative language.

The Sublime (Mountains/Alps)

Nature as a psychological mirror that provides a temporary emotional refuge by making individual human suffering appear small within a vast landscape.

The Female Creature's Silence

A narrative omission representing how male characters control not only a female's body but also the narrative possibilities and agency available to her.

Promethean Characterization

Victor’s expansive sense of mastery and possessive confidence, suggesting that 'creation itself' can be intellectually conquered through science.

Anthropocene (Oryx and Crake)

A perspective showing humanity as a planet-shaping force where the 'solution' found by Crake is the elimination of humans rather than the transformation of their values.