Although changes in context lead to changed values being reflected in texts, common concerns resonate over time and between texts. Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818) and the film Bladerunner (1992), directed by Ridley Scott, both explore the consequences of an unrestrained pursuit of science and knowledge and the nature of humanity. Although both composers raise similar ideas and concerns, they are presented to the audience differently due to the differing contexts in which the two texts were composed. Mary Shelley composed her novel in the midst of the industrial revolution and during the Age of Enlightenment, while Ridley Scott developed his film at a time of unfettered capitalism and consumerism alongside technological advances in computing and genetic modification. In Frankenstein, Shelley displays the dire consequences that accompany the unrestrained pursuit of knowledge.
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. Mary Shelley’s seminal novel, Frankenstein 1818, is a moral fable combining conflicting paradigms of Romantic idealism and Enlightenment rationalism. Shelley delves into these ideologies in a classic gothic horror story that presents the unequivocal issues concerning the ethics and consequences of the pursuit of knowledge and scientific experimentation. Influenced by the increasing popularity of galvanism, Shelley effectively illustrates her apprehensions through the character development of Victor Frankenstein and his juxtaposition against nature. Victor admits his deep desire for ‘immortally and power’ through ‘penetrating the secrets of nature’, which is manifested in his technological innovation of the creature, highlighting the extreme yet realistic potential for technology to create human life.
To what extent does a comparative study accentuate the influence of context on Frankenstein and Blade Runner? While issues change throughout history, values are often similar but presented from the perspective of an era. Mary Shelley's 1800's Frankenstein and Ridley Scott's 1982 Director's cut of Blade Runner essentially explore the same themes. The messages of ambition and science to usurp God and the loss of humanity reflect the time and contexts of the texts. Frankenstein depicts the ambition to use science to usurp God, influenced by the eighteenth century Enlightenment movement (encouraging reasoning to understand the universe), advancements in science in the nineteenth century and the concept of restoration of life through electricity, known as 'galvanism'.
The role of the monster is deprived in a variety of different ways throughout gothic fiction and images of the monster can be found in writings by the prophetic historian and social commentator Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881, both in The French Revolution, 1837, and in his many comments on the growing strength and articulation of the mass of industrial workers and their increasing political demands. The novelist Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, inherited from his reading of Carlyle a strong sense that society was becoming mechanized so that people were beginning to be transformed into a robotic state. In Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein, 1818, creates a phenomenal creature which makes the reader question humanity and the way people are treated. The monster although uneducated becomes eloquent and brave but is still seen as an outcast due to his grotesque appearance and the fact he has had no parenting. The French Revolution, which began in 1789, resulted in the overthrow of the French monarchy and ultimately helped Napoleon Bonaparte to seize control in 1799.
The comparative study of Mary Shelley’s romantic gothic novel, Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s futuristic hybrid film, Blade Runner: Director’s Cut (1991), both significantly demonstrate the personal struggles experienced by individuals due to the loss of nature and humanity as a result of technological advancement. Mary Shelly explores how Victor Frankenstein’s desire to pursue knowledge and power without personal responsibility leads to both the Creature’s and his own struggles in life. Likewise, Ridley Scott show how Tyrell’s unethical actions of creating replicants and a lack of parental responsibility for them result in their personal struggles in a disintegrating society in the near future. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein’s unethical enquiries into the source of life and the attempt to usurp the role of God cause the Creature to experience various struggles in life. Shelley’s use of Galvanism and Genesis, with the support of biblical allusion to criticise humanity’s disregard for nature during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century is used to exemplify the detrimental consequences of science on individuals.
However, the values remain consistent and thus via the respective forms of the text, composers explore issues relating to humanity and unchecked science. Within each text, the composers similarly explore how when scientific endeavour is pursued without a moral frame, the consequences for creator and created, and furthermore humanity, are devastating. The impact on mankind is reflected as Victor Frankenstein brings his monster into existence. This is evident through the use of high modality as he says ‘a new species would bless me as its creator’ and ‘natures would owe their being to me’. Victor’s distant and cold language reveals his overwhelming hubris and reflects the conflation of scientific and Romantic paradigms.
Whilst texts may be fictitious constructs of composers’ imaginations, they also explore and address the societal issues of their eras. This is clearly the case with Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, which draws upon the rise of Galvanism and the Romantic Movement of the 1800’s, as well as Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner, reflecting upon the increasing technological advances and the predominance of capitalism within the late 20th Century. Despite their differing contexts, Shelley and Scott ultimately warn us of the dire consequences of our desire for supremacy and scientific progress, concepts which link the two texts throughout time. Composed in a time of major scientific developments, including Galvani’s concept of electricity as a reanimating source, Shelley’s “Frankenstein” utilises the creative arrogance of the Romantic imagination to create a Gothic world in which the protagonist’s acquisition of the divine privilege of creation has derailed the conventional lines of authority and responsibility. 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.
As a romantic novel, Frankenstein responds to the encroachment of rationalism and the Age of Enlightenment, specifically the unknown repercussions of man’s hubristic pursuit of knowledge. Shelley’s apprehension to science, influenced by the late 18th century industrial revolution and galvanism, is encapsulated by Frankenstein as he ‘infuse[s] a spark of being,’ forming a creature that ultimately destroys him. This is an intertextual reference to the subtitle of the novel, “The Modern Prometheus”, evoking the Greek myth of man’s desire to become god and paralleling the disastrous consequences stemming from ambition. Additionally, the epistolary structure of Walton’s letters acts as a framing device to Frankenstein’s destruction, foreshadowing the result of his own journey. Shelley utilizes Walton as a foil to Frankenstein drawing comparison
The gothic convention of sublime nature is represented thematically, through forces of good and evil leading to vengeance and murder, as well as macabre settings of graveyards and charnel houses. FS reacts to the advances of science in the Industrial Revolution, during which man acquired seemingly godlike capabilities to reanimate life through the principles of Galvanism, as seen through Frankenstein’s quote–“ I will unfold the world to the deepest mysteries of creation”. This concern of science and science is introduced in the novels subtitle “The modern Prometheus” , a recontextualisation of the classical myth, symbolic of the pursuit of knowledge and the consequences of hubris. Frankenstein’s challenging the boundaries of science and technology is evident in the quote– “What has been the pursuit of scientists before was now with in my grasp”. Likewise, in Bladerunner, Scott extrapolates the contextual concerns of the Reagan era of mass consumerism and environmental degradation into a dystopian future.
When one thinks of the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the concepts of knowledge and science are deeply inscribed in the mind. In her work, Mary Shelley tells the story of how one man attempted to emulate the knowledge of his day. Burning with a passion to invent the science of life, Victor Frankenstein soon realizes that such a desire to go beyond current knowledge will backfire and torment the remainder of his life. In the Gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley conveys her attitudes towards science by portraying it as having the capability to exceed the bounds of human restraint. The overwhelming theme of science that is expressed in Frankenstein is that knowledge has the potential to go beyond the boundaries of human control.