107 pages • 3 hours read
Margaret AtwoodThe Year of the Flood
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 13: “Saint Terry and All Wayfarers, and Saint Julian and All Souls”
Part 13, Introduction Summary: “Of the Wandering State”
Adam One remembers the Gardeners’ time on the Edencliff Rooftop, “a space of restoration and renewal, flourishing with innocent Plants and industrious Bees” (485). He reminds everyone that on this day they commemorate Saint Terry Fox, a man who embarked on a run across Canada with an amputated leg to raise awareness about cancer research, and abolitionist Sojourner Truth, “who walked so many miles with only the stars to guide her” (485).
Adam One emphasizes that all the saints of this day are travelers, and they are examples for the Gardeners. He then mentions everyone who is not able to continue the journey with them: Darren and Quill, who wished to stay behind because they carried the deadly virus; Philo, who “entered a Fallow state” (486) and wanted to stay on the Edencliff Rooftop; and Melissa, who was attacked by a pack of wild dogs.
Adam One encourages everyone to put light around these people in their hearts and to sing “The Longest Mile.” The hymn calls for optimism and faith while on a long journey and serves as encouragement to “race on” (487).
Part 13, Chapter 74 Summary: “Ren. Saint Terry and All Wayfarers: Year Twenty-Five”
When Ren wakes up, Toby suggests they do a short meditation before continuing their journey. Ren obeys but she can’t force herself to ask for forgiveness, because she doesn’t know who she needs to forgive. So instead, she thinks about Amanda, and about finding her.
After breakfast, Toby and Ren continue on their path, but soon they hear some voices. As they follow them, they come across a group of people sitting around a fire. There are about 30 of them, and they are all different colors and naked. They look perfect, in great shape with no body hair.
Toby goes forward and tries to have a friendly conversation, asking whether they’ve seen two men and a woman. When they ask if Toby and Ren are friends of Snowman, Toby says yes, hoping that this will help win their trust. One of the men says two men and a woman passed through recently, which gives Ren hope that Amanda is still alive.
The men from the group tell Toby and Ren that Ren “smells blue,” and as they sniff in her direction, they spout “huge blue erections” (492). As they suggest that Ren choose which four of them she wants to copulate with, and “their penises point at [her] and wag from side to side like the tails of happy dogs” (493), Toby explains that Ren “isn’t really blue [...] it’s just her extra skin” (493). She asks where the men and the woman went. The group leader explains that they went along the shore, and that Snowman went to look for them. Toby promises them to bring Snowman back if they let them go, and Ren and Toby walk toward the shore.
Toby explains that they smelled Ren’s estrogen and thought she was “in season”: This is a feature designed by the MaddAddam scientist that was supposed “to eliminate romantic pain” (494). Soon they see tracks in the wet sand and realize they must be close to the two Painballers and Amanda.
Part 13, Chapter 75 Summary: “Toby. Saint Terry and All Wayfarers: Year Twenty-Five”
Toby, sensing that her death might be near, asks God if these new people—the survivors—are his idea “of an improved model” (497). She adds that if so, he has chosen an interesting group of people: some former scientists, a few Gardeners, two Painballers on the loose, and a severely traumatized Amanda. She asks God if he could have picked someone “a little tougher” (497) than Ren as her companion. Toby worries that if she dies, Ren’s life will end tragically as well, because she won’t be able to relocate the cobb house alone.
Toby turns off the safety on her rifle, and they approach the wood line very quietly. Toby notices how beautiful the nature around them is, and she wonders if this is because they are about to die. Toby pauses and smiles at Ren to look reassuring, although she is very nervous. If her rifle fails, she hopes that they both die quickly. Silently, Toby asks a leopard, a wolf, and a liobam for help and guidance.
Part 13, Chapter 76 Summary: “Ren. Saint Terry and All Wayfarers: Year Twenty-Five”
As Ren and Toby creep up into the woods, they hear the two Painballers’ voices and soon see them and Amanda sitting around the fire. Amanda has a rope around her neck, which ties her to the leg of one of the men. She is bruised and very skinny, and has an absent look. As Toby prepares to shoot, they listen to the men talk about their recent encounter with the Crakers. They refer to Amanda as “a sex toy” (500) and wonder if they could trade her for “some of those hot babes of theirs” (500).
When they discuss who is going to rape Amanda first tonight, Jimmy appears in the clearing. He is naked and looks very crazy. He aims his spraygun at one of the Painballers, but one man pulls Amana in front of him, and the other hides behind them. Ren screams at Jimmy not to shoot because it’s Amanda, and Toby steps out with her rifle pointed at the two Painballers. She commands Ren to grab the Painballers’ spraygun, which is still lying on the ground, then tells the men to put their hands behind their heads so Ren can tie them.
As soon as the men are immobilized, Amanda pulls up the rope and kicks each of them in the groin. Afterward, she runs toward Ren and hugs her, sobbing from pain and joy. After they knot the Painballers together, Ren approaches Jimmy and tells him who she is, but he doesn’t seem to remember her.
Part 13 Analysis
Through Amanda and the newly created humans, Part 13 brings to the fore the theme of sexual objectification. When Toby and Ren find Amanda, who is held captive by the two Painballers, it’s clear that her abductors have reduced her to an object of sexual desire treated solely as “a sex toy” (500). They rape her daily and see her as “used up, worn out. Worthless” (500). For the Painballers, rape is the ultimate manifestation of male dominance and privilege, and they use their position of strength to reduce Amanda to a body meant for their pleasure. They see her value only as a sex object and thus feel empowered to treat her as a commodity that can be used up and traded. Therefore, when Amanda kicks both her rapists in their genitals, she directs her anger at the male signifier that has repeatedly exploited and dehumanized her.
Amanda is not the only character cast as a sexual object. Ren, while free from her abductors, risks being raped by a group of Crakers, humanoid creatures genetically designed by Crake to be perfect. When she and Toby run into them, the Crakers smell her estrogen, and the male members of the group point their erect, blue-colored penises toward her, ready to copulate. Crake created these new humans to see sex as a means of reproduction, devoid of emotional attachment. The goal was “to make life simpler” (495) and “eliminate romantic pain” (495), but this feature defaced the new humans, especially women, who are reduced to childbearing organisms. When Ren and Toby are confronted by the Crakers, only Ren is identified as smelling “very blue” (492), meaning that she has high estrogen levels. Toby doesn’t seem of interest to them at all—perhaps they can sense her infertility. The fact that the male Crakers don’t react to Toby reinforces the idea that they were designed to copulate and multiply, and so they completely disregard those who don’t have the physical ability to bear children. Toby’s infertility makes her immune to the Crakers’ abuses and ultimately gives her a position of power in this postpandemic world.
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By Margaret Atwood
