Blade Runner And Frankenstein Comparison Essay

Through the comparison of texts consequent of different eras and different social milieu, ubiquitous values and concerns for humanity can be illuminated. Shelley’s Gothic epistolary-structured novella, Frankenstein (1818), and Scott’s neo-noir picture film Blade Runner (1982), can be paralleled to illustrate man’s divine transgression of attempting to usurp the creative prerogative of god and deify science that is only able to be reconciled through a rebirth of the human spirit. While these exploits, however, inherently stem from their composers contextual anxieties, and inevitably vilify human nature, both texts ultimately explore the innate capacity of humanity.

As Shelley endeavours to edify us on the ramifications of dethroning and desecrating

God, Scott illustrates the imperilment of debasing the divine through an unnatural obsession with economic gain that is indifferent to ethical boundaries. Victor Frankenstein, Shelley’s labyrinthine character, shares intrinsic qualities to Milton’s Satan, the fallen angel, in the frequently alluded to Paradise Lost, as religious diction is used to describe his wish to be “bless(ed) as (a beings) source and creator” reminiscent of Lucifer’s "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” Illustrating Victor’s rationale to replace god. Whilst egotistically similar, Scott’s Tyrell, the “god of biomechanics”, seeks only to advance his own commercial gain, irrespective of moral boundaries, as he announces oxymoronically “Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell, more human than human is our motto” reflecting Scott’s contextual anxieties surrounding the growing superpowers of Asia-Pacific trans-national companies. Paralleling Tyrell, Frankenstein evidences the blurred nature of these ethical boundaries and his subsequent conquering of deific powers, through the rich hyperbolic imagery and biblical allusion of “life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through and pour a torrent of light into our dark world” as he mirrors that of the holy father who spoke in Genesis “Let there be light; he willed it, and at once there was light.” In pursuit of such divinity, however, both Frankenstein and Tyrell, in a classical greek tragedy appreciation, display their distinctly mortal hubris. As Frankenstein’s mortal coil is illuminated through his use of narrative and simile “I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life…”, Tyrell’s struggles against his own mortality is symbolised in the The Immortal (chess) Game (1851) against Roy, as he attempts to take control of the board, but ultimately becomes blind to the impending check-mate and his own foreshadowed demise. Ironically, the ostensible deities both perish before their creations, as Tyrell suffers an agonising death at the hands of his own “prodigal son” that has metaphorically “burn(ed) twice as bright, (but) half as long” alluding to Milton’s Lucifer who was “one of the wisest and most beautiful of all the angels in heaven”, while Frankenstein suffers a solitary death, but not before anguishing an allegorical Faustian damnation “chained in an eternal hell”. Last Sentence linking to Q and T.

As Shelley demonstrates cognitive dissonance to be paradoxically a product of the scientific dogmas of the Age of Enlightenment, Scott elucidates competing discourses of scientific materialism and dystopian consumption, as a product of the post-modern “Greed is Good Era” of the 1980’s, to render a society that has been irreversibly dehumanised.

The potentially decadent scientific motivation which persists in Frankenstein is also paralleled in Robert Walton, as the arctic explorer who undertakes an “enterprise” which has been foreshadowed “with such evil forebodings” is unable to satiate his profound scientific curiosity, as seen in the rhetorical question “what may not be expected in a country of eternal light?”. Similarly in Scott’s dystopia, this controlling attribute of science is aligned with the motif of the phantasmic smiling Japanese woman on large advertising technological panels used to indoctrinate the populace, as wide panning shots and non-diegetic musically discordant strings are used to create an atmosphere of unease for the audience. While Frankenstein’s loss of cognitive ability shown in the hyperbolised “I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.” serves to release Walton of his own scientifically burdened oppression, Scott’s dystopia remains plagued with the incessant need for commercial exploitation, to the extent where replicants like Priss have been dehumanised to, as Bryant describes, be base-line “pleasure models”. Last

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While Shelley promotes a renewed and more altruistic human spirit, in combination with championing quintessential decent human values, Scott illustrates how the vacuity of humanity within his dystopia has led to an overlap of different modes of consciousness, as replicants become increasingly human, and humans increasingly inhuman.

The Creature, who metaphorically symbolises the uninhibited scientific advancement of the 19th century, ironically embodies quintessential elements of the human spirit as hyperbolically he is “refreshed by a thousand scents of delight, and a thousand sights of beauty”. Analogous to the Creature are replicants, who’s situation Tyrell describes, to the background of non diegetic harmonious twinkling music, as “emotionally inexperienced with only a few years (to store) experiences, which you and I take for granted”. However, despite this short life span, it is evidenced that the virtuous nature of humanity is exemplified in replicants, as opposed to human characters, as evidenced by Roy who shares both compassion with Priss in life, and extreme sorrow in her death, releasing doleful howls of dejection. In stark juxtaposition,Tyrell, who uses a dehumanising tone to outcast Rachel as “an experiment, nothing more”, demonstrates how humanity appears to be solely motivated by avarice. Paralleling Roy, Shelley’s Creature is also shown to encompass righteous elements of the human spirit, as he feels contrition and inexorable grief over the death of his

creator, illustrated through the exclamations and the rhetorical question “Oh Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now ask the to pardon me?”. While the chasm of human emotion within Scott’s dystopian rendition of L.A 2019 is filled by replicants, evidenced by the religious imagery of a Jesus resembling Roy, who metaphorically ascends to heaven, through the release of a dove, Shelley’s Creature, also comes to personify moral human values of atonement as he poetically pledges that the “bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in (his) wounds until death shall close them for ever.” Last Sentence linking to Q and T.

In conclusion by creating a nexus between texts of different eras and different social milieu, values and concerns for humanity can be illuminated. Both Shelley and Scott explore man’s attempt to usurp the creative prerogative of god and deify science which in response to advocate a rebirth of the human spirit. Last Sentence linking to Q