Frankenstein and Blade Runner: Social Commentaries on the Disruption of Human Condition
A deeper understanding of disruption and identity emerges from considering the parallels between Frankenstein and Blade Runner [copy this essay and you die >:(
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner are both social commentaries that reiterate the zeitgeist of their era; exploring parallel anxieties concerning the disruption of the human condition, the human condition being the meaningful interaction between humanity and the world around. Both composers raise this as the salient premise, through the embodiment of these disruptions in an identity. Identity and character play a significant role in unpacking the contextual fears and criticisms in both of these texts. Frankenstein and Bladerunner utilize differing mediums and conceptual aesthetic frameworks to elucidate their contextual parallels. Bladerunner as a grand narrative utilizes postmodern textual features like anti-humanist agendas and Frankenstein as a hybridized gothic text employing principles established by romantics framing enlightenment. Shelley and Scott both share concerns with the teleological perspective of the disruption of the human condition due to the corrupting clutches of technology. Shelley and Scott display strong contextual links which endure across time, such as common scientifically dominated worlds and contemporary anxieties.
As the contemporary human condition dominates the face of the Earth with unerring progress, it is paradoxical in both texts that the focus shifts to the flaws of this domination. Victor’s hamartia is his own blinding ambition and need to defy ‘the natural' a contextual parallel to the process of enlightenment, to even try to dominate it” who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil… pursue nature to her hiding-place”, the personification of nature and blatant disrespect creates a disruption in the human condition. The humans in Bladerunner are portrayed to be inferior to the replicants by the dysphemistic term “little people”. The human
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner are both social commentaries that reiterate the zeitgeist of their era; exploring parallel anxieties concerning the disruption of the human condition, the human condition being the meaningful interaction between humanity and the world around. Both composers raise this as the salient premise, through the embodiment of these disruptions in an identity. Identity and character play a significant role in unpacking the contextual fears and criticisms in both of these texts. Frankenstein and Bladerunner utilize differing mediums and conceptual aesthetic frameworks to elucidate their contextual parallels. Bladerunner as a grand narrative utilizes postmodern textual features like anti-humanist agendas and Frankenstein as a hybridized gothic text employing principles established by romantics framing enlightenment. Shelley and Scott both share concerns with the teleological perspective of the disruption of the human condition due to the corrupting clutches of technology. Shelley and Scott display strong contextual links which endure across time, such as common scientifically dominated worlds and contemporary anxieties.
As the contemporary human condition dominates the face of the Earth with unerring progress, it is paradoxical in both texts that the focus shifts to the flaws of this domination. Victor’s hamartia is his own blinding ambition and need to defy ‘the natural' a contextual parallel to the process of enlightenment, to even try to dominate it” who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil… pursue nature to her hiding-place”, the personification of nature and blatant disrespect creates a disruption in the human condition. The humans in Bladerunner are portrayed to be inferior to the replicants by the dysphemistic term “little people”. The human