The Pleeblands are “outside”—lawlessness, disease, and poverty abound. Contagion threatens to break into the body from air or water. Outside stands for fear, foreignness, dirtiness, poverty, and desolation. After the plague, the inside and outside are no longer separated, and the whole world becomes outside. Outside thus stands for the breakdown of order—social, economic, and cultural hierarchies are meaningless “outside.”
Outside Quotes in Oryx and Crake
The Oryx and Crake quotes below all refer to the symbol of Outside. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 8
Quotes
How could I have missed it? Snowman thinks. What he was telling me? How could I have been so stupid?...
There had been something willed about it, though, his ignorance…he’d grown up in walled spaces, and then he’d become one. He had shut things out.
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Chapter 11
Quotes
Maybe the guards tried to get out of RejoovenEsense just like everyone else. Maybe they, too, hoped they could outrun contagion.
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Outside Symbol Timeline in Oryx and Crake
The timeline below shows where the symbol Outside appears in Oryx and Crake. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...clear that a new kind of virus had been introduced in the livestock population from outside. Jimmy’s father and the other man lament that their paid security forces failed to do...
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...insular and secure community built for company employees and their families. Jimmy has never been outside, to a city, and has heard that the cities are dirty and dangerous. People within...
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