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Sharon
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:
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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.
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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.
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“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.”
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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...
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...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...
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OrganInc Farms. Jimmy’s father works at a company called OrganInc Farms, where he is one of the foremost architects...
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...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...
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...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...
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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...
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Chapter 4
On Jimmy’s tenth birthday his father gives him a pet rakunk. Jimmy wants to name it Bandit, but when his mother...
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Shortly after Killer arrives, Jimmy’s father finds a better job at NooSkins, a subsidiary of HelthWyzer, and the family moves to...
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...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...
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Jimmy’s father begins spending more time at work, but rarely talks about his work to Jimmy or...
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...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...
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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...
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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...
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...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...
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