To what extent does the time in which the composers live influence their response to enduring human emotion? Our morality shapes us and forces us to explore new avenues, but our crude desire to unravel and expose the mysteries of life will drive and reveal a future void of moral and ethical compassion. It is this fatal warning which Mary Shelley and Ridley Scott seek to convey in their retrospective texts, Frankenstein and Blade Runner. Drawing upon their personal contextual concerns, both composers uniquely inform an ambitious humanity of that the implications of the ruthless pursuit of knowledge and our innate craving to penetrate the secrets of nature will inevitably drive humanity towards a dystopian future. Shaped by their distinctly different contexts, Shelley and Scott strive to convey this notion, through bold cinematic and literary techniques, characterisation and themes, of the fatal path humanity has placed itself on.
One of the key features Mary Shelley explores in her novel 'Frankenstein' is the dark side if the human psyche. This can be demonstrated through the characters of Frankenstein, Elizabeth and the monster via the desire for forbidden knowledge of science. Shelley also explores the sexual repression of Victor Frankenstein which could ultimately lead him to a 'dark side' of his human psyche. Therefore it can be said that Mary Shelley does explore the latter to a large extent. One of the ways Shelley explores the dark side of the human psyche is the suppressed and forbidden knowledge which Victor Frankenstein is hungry for.
Victor represents society intent on pushing the boundaries and themonster represents the product of this curiosity; of technology gone wrong;technology without ethics. “Accursed creator! Why do you form a monster so hideousthat even you turn away from me in disgust?” The monsters constant rhetoricquestioning addresses these ethics and illuminates the monster as a symbol of innocence in the face of corruption. Victor’s relationships also allow insight into themoral dilemma of creation. Victor’s positive family relationship is juxtaposed againsthis spite for the monster, a somewhat child of his.
In the novel Frankenstein, author Marry Shelley depicts character Victor Frankenstein as a scientist with a strong passion for forbidden knowledge and finding the answers to life through science. Though his intentions are good this leads him to the creation of a monster. Throughout the novel Frankenstein is constantly encountered by obstacles that test his passions for science and responsibility for his creation. For Victor it seems that the choice to abandon the monster is the easier path, rather than taking care of his creation. In the beginning of the book, right after the creation of the monster, Victor fled his home to get away from the creature, only to return and find that it had escaped.
Mary Shelley uses different narrators to manipulate our views back and forth. For example if Frankenstein was narrating the story he would be against the ‘creation’. Frankenstein clearly hated how ‘delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains’ he had created. His emotions strongly influence our response to the ‘creation.’ Whereas if the story was being narrated by the ‘creation’ we would feel empathy and sympathy for the creation. ‘My heart sank with bitter sickness, as I
Her warning of the dangers of such actions is encapsulated within Victor’s concerning words of “how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge”, whilst Shelley’s use of a fragmented epistolatory narrative adds a disturbing sense of truth and realism, foreshadowing the dark consequences of Frankenstein’s actions. Shelley’s warning is evident throughout the novel which ultimately reflects her context through the concern of scientists within her era exploiting the advancements in science. It also reinforces the dangers of our humanity’s inherent yearning to play the role of the Creator. Such a warning also exists within Scott’s “Blade Runner” where the director echoes the rise of capitalist principles through the symbolic dominance of Tyrell’s towering dwelling, a reflection of both his desire for omnipotence and commercial power. Scott’s warning of the dangers of
The replicants are artificial, the memories are artificial. Technology has well and truly taken over. Akin to Frankenstein, Blade Runner acts as a severe warning to the depressing future we may have if we try to push advances of science and technology further and further beyond the limit. As before mentioned, it is the hubris of the protagonists in each text that causes the highest diminution of humanity. In both texts, both protagonists seek earnestly to become God-like by taking on the role of creator, Frankenstein with the monster, and Tyrell with the replicants.
He tells him ‘do your duty towards me and I will do mine towards you,’ and if Frankenstein refused, he threatened him by saying he would ‘glut the maw of death’. This shows how the Creature’s abandonment and lack of nurture leads him to become a murderer. Further proof of this is when, during the Creature’s tale he tell Frankenstein ‘I could not conceive how one man could go fourth and murder his fellow’ showing that he was ‘benevolent and good’ and had Frankenstein full filled his duty he may have remained so. The Creature admits to Frankenstein ‘misery made me a fiend’ implying that Frankenstein’s actions, or lack of action, lead to this misery. Primarily it is not Frankenstein who has to suffer the consequences of his creating life, it is the Creature.
Throughout the story the consequences of Victor’s creation are meant to warn the reader against playing god. One of Mary Shelley’s principal themes in Frankenstein is that ambition, when it is not controlled and not subject to careful reflection, can result in catastrophe. Victor’s increasing ambition
Frankenstein wanted to recreate his mother, but instead he made a creature comprised of the socially repressed elements of Frankenstein (the monster) and his wish for his mother. Frankenstein's creature comprises all of the unacceptable traits of humans, those we usually suppress. These traits may actually be a representation of those traits that Frankenstein wishes he had. Mary Shelley tries to humanize the position of the impossible monster to imagine what it would be like for a monster to sustain personhood when everybody around him treats him as an utterly outcast to society. Shelley is trying to show that the creature is not inherently monstrous, but