Comparing Frankenstein And Blade Runner
Texts in Time
Analyse how Frankenstein and Blade Runner imaginatively portray individuals who challenge the established values of their time
Timeless texts inevitably explore universal debates about core human values and the social significance of these values. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) are two such timeless texts: both present arguments in favour of enduring human values such as compassion, responsibility, empathy and humility, particularly within the context of humankind’s ambitious efforts to transform the world through technology and science. Shelley and Scott, writing nearly two centuries apart, are both particularly concerned with the potential dangers to humanity that may arise when …show more content…
Contextual influences shape our values and way of life just as those of us living at that time challenge the values of that time. Shelley wrote Frankenstein during the Scientific Revolution not long after Galvani’s discovery of so-called ‘animal electricity’, sparking her idea of the possibilities of generating new human life. The power of the creative imagination was also a major influence on Shelley, a Romantic herself, and very influenced the renowned Romantic poets, husband Percy Shelley and friend Lord Byron. Shelley used the character of Victor Frankenstein in order to question the scientific and industrial revolutions wherein industrialists and scientists were increasingly focused on the thirst for knowledge at the expense of nature. In her text she has the obsessed Victor comment that he “did not watch the blossom of expanding leaves” and here …show more content…
Shelley also used Victor as a pawn to demonstrate the impacts of how an individual’s emergent hubris fuelled by romantic values of progress and imagination can lead to over stepping of human boundaries which ends in tragedy and unintended consequences. Victors clouded vision and desire for recognition “a new species would bless me as its creator” ultimately leads him to his failure in creation. Shelley uses the biblical story of God and Adam to portray her concerns about the seriousness of what Frankenstein is doing: “God in pity made man beautiful… after his own image, but my form is a filthy type of yours, the use of negative diction such as ‘filthy’ and the paradoxical comparison between God and Victor shows how attempting to overreach (i.e. play God) leads only to failure. This was also Shelley’s contest against the enlightenments’ scepticism on authority and her prediction to the consequences if taken too far. Similarly within the film Blade Runner overreaching is also explored through the characters of Tyrell and his Replicants. During the time of production of this film there was an increase in genetic engineering such as the test tube babies and these scientific developments are clearly a contextual concern reflected in the film. Tyrell's character is a response to technologies rapid growth and how a combination
Analyse how Frankenstein and Blade Runner imaginatively portray individuals who challenge the established values of their time
Timeless texts inevitably explore universal debates about core human values and the social significance of these values. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) are two such timeless texts: both present arguments in favour of enduring human values such as compassion, responsibility, empathy and humility, particularly within the context of humankind’s ambitious efforts to transform the world through technology and science. Shelley and Scott, writing nearly two centuries apart, are both particularly concerned with the potential dangers to humanity that may arise when …show more content…
Contextual influences shape our values and way of life just as those of us living at that time challenge the values of that time. Shelley wrote Frankenstein during the Scientific Revolution not long after Galvani’s discovery of so-called ‘animal electricity’, sparking her idea of the possibilities of generating new human life. The power of the creative imagination was also a major influence on Shelley, a Romantic herself, and very influenced the renowned Romantic poets, husband Percy Shelley and friend Lord Byron. Shelley used the character of Victor Frankenstein in order to question the scientific and industrial revolutions wherein industrialists and scientists were increasingly focused on the thirst for knowledge at the expense of nature. In her text she has the obsessed Victor comment that he “did not watch the blossom of expanding leaves” and here …show more content…
Shelley also used Victor as a pawn to demonstrate the impacts of how an individual’s emergent hubris fuelled by romantic values of progress and imagination can lead to over stepping of human boundaries which ends in tragedy and unintended consequences. Victors clouded vision and desire for recognition “a new species would bless me as its creator” ultimately leads him to his failure in creation. Shelley uses the biblical story of God and Adam to portray her concerns about the seriousness of what Frankenstein is doing: “God in pity made man beautiful… after his own image, but my form is a filthy type of yours, the use of negative diction such as ‘filthy’ and the paradoxical comparison between God and Victor shows how attempting to overreach (i.e. play God) leads only to failure. This was also Shelley’s contest against the enlightenments’ scepticism on authority and her prediction to the consequences if taken too far. Similarly within the film Blade Runner overreaching is also explored through the characters of Tyrell and his Replicants. During the time of production of this film there was an increase in genetic engineering such as the test tube babies and these scientific developments are clearly a contextual concern reflected in the film. Tyrell's character is a response to technologies rapid growth and how a combination