Jimmy’s father is a very absent figure in Jimmy’s life. He is professionally successful, and does not display any misgivings about the ethics of the work he or anyone else does at his company. Jimmy’s father is initially very upset about Sharon’s disappearance, but slowly begins to feel liberated by it. His colleague and girlfriend, Ramona, with whom he has likely been having a long-term emotional affair, moves in and helps out with Jimmy. Once Jimmy is out of the house, he only hears from his father once or twice a year. Usually it is a birthday e-card, sent to him after his birthday has already passed. Jimmy believes his father is killed by Crake’s plague.
Jimmy’s father Quotes in Oryx and Crake
The Oryx and Crake quotes below are all either spoken by Jimmy’s father or refer to Jimmy’s father. 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:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
“Leave Daddy alone,” said his mother. “Daddy is thinking. That’s what they pay him for. He doesn’t have time for you.
Related Characters:Sharon (speaker), Jimmy’s father, Jimmy (Snowman)
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
20
Explanation and Analysis:
In the flashback scenes that begin in this chapter, we see Snowman's early life, back when he was called Jimmy--a life that was characterized by absentee parents and emotional emptiness. Jimmy's parents worked for a major corporation, although Jimmy's mother, Sharon, eventually abandoned the corporation because she objected to what she saw as its immoral uses of science and technology.Sharon is a complex character in the novel, because she's a moral authority (she seems to be one of the only people who realizes how evil the corporation is), and yet she's not a very loving mother to Jimmy. In this Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus
Chapter 4
Quotes
There’d been a lot of fooling around in those days: create-an-animal was so much fun, said the guys doing it. It made you feel like God.
Related Characters:Jimmy’s father
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
51
Explanation and Analysis:
On his birthday, Jimmy receives a pet from his father: a rakunk, a combination of a skunk and a raccoon. As Snowman, in the present, remembers the rakunk, he thinks about the genetic engineering that went on during his childhood. Scientists seemed to enjoy the engineering projects not so much because of their utility but because they encouraged the scientists to feel powerful: creating new forms of life, after all, is practically the definition of being a god.The passage introduces a religious flavor to the novel: it's suggested that mankind has been punished for daring to overstep its bounds and Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accu
“We give people Hope. Hope isn’t ripping off!” “At Nooskins’ price it is. You hype your wares and take all their money, and then it's no more treatments for them…Don’t you remember the way you used to talk?...you had ideals, then.” […] “There’s nothing sacred about cells and tissue.”
Related Characters:Jimmy’s father (speaker), Sharon (speaker)
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
56
Explanation and Analysis:
In this passage, Jimmy's parents have an argument about the morality of Jimmy's father's genetic research. Jimmy's father works for a corporation called NooSkin that's pretty clearly corrupt and immoral: it charges people huge sums of money in return for a "new skin" that won't get old or show signs of aging over time. The corporation also researches its technology by experimenting with human DNA, combining it with animal DNA in various unusual ways.Sharon's attack on her husband's research is twofold: first, she finds it immoral that a company would cheat people into buying new skins for such large sums; Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus co
Jimmy’s father Character Timeline in Oryx and Crake
The timeline below shows where the character Jimmy’s father appears in Oryx and Crake. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...burning hair reminds Jimmy of when he’d burned his own hair, as an experiment. His father had found it funny, but his mother, Sharon, had been furious, and it had caused...
(full context)
...animals were diseased. Jimmy asks if he will be burned up for getting sick. Jimmy’s father says yes, as a joke, which angers Jimmy’s mother. Jimmy cries, and his mother takes...
(full context)
OrganInc Farms. Jimmy’s father works at a company called OrganInc Farms, where he is one of the foremost architects...
(full context)
...eats lunch at OrganInc with his dad and his dad’s coworker Ramona. Ramona asks Jimmy’s father many questions about Sharon, expressing concern for her mental health and sadness over the fact...
(full context)
...People within the compounds refer to cities and their surrounding areas as “the pleeblands.” Jimmy’s father likes the safety and serenity of the compound, but Jimmy’s mother likens it to a...
(full context)
Chapter 3
...and wishes he hadn’t lost it. This makes him think of his ninth birthday, when his dad had given him a pocketknife. Snowman recalls, years later, telling Oryx about the knife, and...
(full context)
Chapter 4
On Jimmy’s tenth birthday his father gives him a pet rakunk. Jimmy wants to name it Bandit, but when his mother...
(full context)
Shortly after Killer arrives, Jimmy’s father finds a better job at NooSkins, a subsidiary of HelthWyzer, and the family moves to...
(full context)
...no longer has to eat lunch at home with his mom or at work with his dad . He is happy about this, and begins to put on weight and branch out...
(full context)
Jimmy’s father begins spending more time at work, but rarely talks about his work to Jimmy or...
(full context)
...frequent and immodest lovemaking. When Snowman thinks about it, he concludes that Ramona and his father probably did not make their affair physical until after his mother left. He ruminates on...
(full context)
Chapter 7
...Snowman leaves the Craker camp, he again feels anger towards Crake. The voice of his father tells him he must stop whining. Snowman points out to his father that he had...
(full context)
Chapter 8
...can be trusted. Seemingly to make Jimmy feel better, Crake tells him that Crake's own father had also left under similar circumstances, and died after going over a highway overpass. Crake...
(full context)
...releasing them into the population in order to sell the cures—because “illness isn’t productive.” Crake's father, Crake then reveals, was pushed off an overpass because he had found out about this...
(full context)