Atwood by the Time of the Flood,

Atwood

By the time of the Flood, human beings have so thoroughly and inextricably interfered with the natural process of evolution that hybrid animals and plants are commonplace. The names of the genetically modified organisms are part of the common vernacular, uttered in the same sentence as their counterparts that had evolved slowly over the course of the past several million years. Most times, Atwood's descriptions of the life forms on Earth during the Flood are sardonic to underscore the sinister nature of the genetic intervention. For example, in Chapter 6, Toby reflects on her childhood in the "semi-country, before the sprawl had rolled over that stretch of landscape." Within that sprawl comingle the creatures of natural and forced evolution: "there were squirrels, and the first green rabbits. No rakunks, those hadn't been put together yet," (Chapter 6). The reader can easily assume that a rakunk is a raccoon-skunk, but for what purpose one would have been "put together" can only guess.

One of the first scenes in which the reader encounters the amalgamated creatures occurs in Chapter 3. Toby works in the garden and on the "delicate carrot frond she finds two bright-blue kudzu-moth caterpillars," which had been "developed as a biological control for invasive kudzu," (Chapter 3). Atwood cleverly juxtaposes the natural with the unnatural here, early in The Year of the Flood. What truly makes the kudzu-moth caterpillars remarkable, though, is the way "their designer gave them a baby face at the front end, with big eyes and a happy smile, which makes them remarkably difficult to kill," (Chapter 3). Undoubtedly, their designer purposefully placed those "cutie-pie masks" on them (Chapter 3).

Toby also encounters pigs, which she assumes are "escapees…from some experimental farm or another," (Chapter 3). Also in Chapter 3, the reader meets the green rabbits and the bobkittens, which "weren't numerous before the Flood" but which have been multiplying at "astonishing" speed (Chapter 3). The genetically modified organisms appear and reappear throughout The Year of the Flood, adding continuity and showing how humans are adjusting to their new normal.

In Chapter 8, Toby talks about the Mo'Hair sheep, bred of course for their ability to produce massive amounts of wool. In fact, Toby comments about how thanks to Mo'Hair sheep she lost a valuable source of income selling her own hair. The name Mo'Hair is eerily the same as that of mohair, which is a natural form of wool from a specific breed of goat. The name therefore evokes the sense that the world depicted in The Year of the Flood is not much different from our own. Indeed, readers are aware that genetically modified foods are already being consumed; the leap from modern science to science in The Year of the Flood is not a big one.