\u27Everything Looks Different up Close\u27: Perception in Margaret Atwood\u27s Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood

In the first two books of her MaddAdam series (a projected trilogy), Margaret Atwood explores a series of events from three very different perspectives. A close reading of the two texts suggests that the specific focalizers chosen, and their very different ways of perceiving the world around them, are central issues in the novels. In Oryx and Crake, Atwood establishes the apocalypse as a problem of dystopian vision through the book\u27s deeply flawed focalizer. In The Year of the Flood two alternative visions are offered in order to rehabilitate the perceptual problems of the first text. In the three chapters of this paper, I will explore the devices used to establish each focalizer\u27s specific vision, the ways in which each focalizer views apocalypse, and the relationship of each focalizer to the utopian perspective that appears poised to redeem dystopia and apocalypse