As Foucault writes, it’s i mpossible to move completely beyond the limits of self and society: “we are always in the position of beginning again” (41). Atwood’s familiar but futuristic world plays into this concept. This reminds me of Foucault’s notion that during this critique process, we can never have an a-priori distance from our subject: we are always critiquing from the inside, be it of ourselves or our society. This idea is furthered by the concept that, like Foucault, Atwood creates a space that while set in the future, is not completely foreign to today’s reality. The reading experience of Oryx and Crake becomes an engagement in Foucault’s process: it forces us to critique ourselves and our community so as to, hopefully, make impactful change. Using a postmodern, post-apocalyptic reality, Atwood critiques the society we currently exist in through this critique, she then catalyzes personal internal reflection for the reader. I see Foucault’s process of Enlightenment–this close-reading of self and society–clearly within the novel. What does this French philosopher have to do with a 2017 futuristic novel, you ask? Maybe there is no direct connection maybe Atwood hasn’t even read Foucault before–or maybe she has.
One such example is Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake. While Foucault’s writing often feels very theoretical, real life applications of his thought are prevalent–once you start looking. Foucault challenges us to look back on who we are and the society we live in, in hopes that through this chronological and multi-layered dig, we can alter our behavior in effective, meaningful ways. According to the essay, this “historical investigation” should occur at the limits or boundaries of society, creating what Foucault calls a “limit-attitude.” He argues that in order “to move beyond the outside-inside alternative we have to be at the frontiers” (40). Foucault’s process, or way of “acting and behaving,” involves analyzing society and ourselves engaging in “a historical investigation into the events that have led us to constitute ourselves…genealogical in its design and archaeological in method” (40). In his essay “What is Enlightenment,” Michel Foucault answers the title question, proposing the Enlightenment as more of a process and mindset than solely a historical era: “ a mode of relating to contemporary reality…a way of thinking and feeling…acting and behaving that at one and the same time marks a relation of belonging and presents itself as a task” (36).
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