Never Let Me Go and Oryx and Crake Research Paper

A Perfect Forever

We live in a world full of greed. People are willing to do whatever it takes to have an inch longer of life. Some scientists are so dedicated that they are willing to go under a microscope to pick and pull genes to make humans better as a whole. While there is no known way without cloning to have a perfect guaranteed organ match, it is definitely a desire among people. Following novels like Oryx and Crake and Never Let Me Go, we see how scientists take real life dreams and humanly desires to the lab by cloning humans for perfect organ matches and “fixing the human race” by genetic engineering.

In page 22 of Oryx and Crake, we are far before the crakers and talking about the pigoons. They are referred to as being able to grow human tissue organs without the possibility of rejection (Atwood 22). This is very similar to how Kathy and other clones were built. They are not there for any purpose but to help people live on with ease by guarantee organ transplant. We are assured of this when Mrs. Lucy tells the students their “lives are set out for [them]” (Ishiguro 65).

As humans, we always desire a perfect society and all have our own ideas on how it can be done, including Crake. Crake’s idea of a perfect society is “eliminating one generation. One generation of anything” (Atwood 223). Now, we know that wiping out the world and starting up from dirt is not going to appease the human race, however Atwood is trying to get the point across that genetic engineering is the solution to making the world a better place. Scientists have a different view from what Mark Herring says. He says that “no one really believes that any sort of genetic engineering research will enable any wheel-chair bound individual to get up and walk. (Herring 9). The BlyssPluss pill is the ideal way to be almost immortal. With staying young forever and no possibility of death, the pill is something all humans would be interested in, except for it has one little condition. The plague that will destroy the human race (Atwood 294).

What Crake is doing with this pill is widely known as “playing God.” We see people in real life trying to do this in their own ways, not taking it quite as far as crake, but they do it. For example, Lou Gehrig’s disease has been around for upward a hundred years. Back then, the life expectancy through medicine was 2 years after diagnosis. Now, through hooking people up to machines and sedating them, people live full life times with the disease (Herring 146). This is a moral controversy between people, and it is also one of the biggest issues in Never Let Me Go.

Clones are used in Never Let Me Go to give donations of organs to people without the risk of rejection. I mean, what’s wrong with this? They are just some cloned machines that have organs, aren’t they? Well not according to Professor Lovell-Badge, who has an article in BBC. Lovell-Badge states that clones are like identical twins. What starts as one egg and one sperm becomes two people with the exact same genetic make-up (Lovell-Badge line 18). Twins studied report having completely different identities and have full individuality (Lovell-Badge line 20). The point she is getting across is that although clones are “created” to help people, they are really hurting the clones which would be real people. She also thinks we are not ready for it and that cloning “should not be attempted with current knowledge” (Lovell-Badge line 35).

One prime example of a clone with a mind at work is when Ruth questions their (the clones) beginning by saying “We all know it. We’re modelled from trash. Junkies, prostitutes, winos, tramps. Convicts, maybe, just so long as they aren’t psychos. That’s what we come from. We all know it, so why don’t we say it?” (Ishiguro 166). This is where the morals come in. We have an understanding that clones would have a mind of their own, but our humanly desire for immortality leaves us questioning if it’s worth it. Clones would be lucky, however, to make it to birth as over 90% of clone trials have failed. Among those that survive, there is a high rate of clones that suffer from deformities and disabilities (“Human Cloning Ethical Issues” 11). With such a high chance of death and/or suffering, people should stop and think, “Is it worth it?”

Never Let Me Go only shows us the negative sides