Frankenstein_and_Blade_Runner

In discussing Frankenstein’s pursuit of success and power, it is quintessential to confer the contextual background from which it spawns into the novel. The initial idea that influenced Frankenstein’s motive to create a creature that “would bless me as its creator,” was a reflection of the Age of Enlightenment that spurred intellectual and philosophical wisdom throughout the 1700’s. Frankenstein’s adoration to the scientists of his time that possess “unlimited powers” and the capability to “command the thunders of heaven,” metaphorically hyperbolises the point of power he ambitions for, higher than that of a God, and reflects the importance of a scientific, atheistic understanding of your surrounding world. On the other hand, are the consequences of defying the natural order, that this era contained much respect for, through what many labelled as selfish and irreverent endeavour. The novel itself being a mythological allusion to the ‘Promethean Myth’, a telling of the negative outcome of contending with the Gods, makes a further allusion to an influential text at the turn of the 19th century, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’ The excerpt used to illustrate Frankenstein being skulked by “a frightful fiend,” alludes to the text’s cautionary message of defying nature, and being consequently ‘cursed.’ This personification of nature as an omniscient force is heightened when perceived by Frankenstein to “mock at my unhappiness,” further demonstrating the apparent fears of the 19th century of defying God and the natural order in an ‘unethical’ pursuance of power and success. Correspondingly, an immoral campaign for success and power is depicted in ‘Blade Runner’, to reflect the fear of the growing tyranny that were multinational corporations in a superficially blind consumerist society, that grew in the late 20th century. This depiction is primarily demonstrated through the character, Tyrell. Consistently throughout the film, a religious aura is attached to him to assert his ‘God-like’ status amongst society, whilst simultaneously detaching him from it and the ramifications of his actions. This position is illustrated by his physical place in society, in the historical allusion to Egyptian culture that is his pyramid, a symbol that they saw to be a vessel to connect with the Gods. This is symbolically emphasised by the extremely juxtaposed high key lighting exerting from his pyramid to the ‘heavens’, to the low key colour scheme of the film’s majority. The alternative aspect of his godly position is his detachment from society, an expression of the lack of care that multinational corporations showed for the negative results of their growing power. To fuel the consumerist society that the late 20th century had become, manufacturing and production levels climaxed and consequently so did pollution rates and the appearance of hazardous acid rain. This is visually represented in ‘Blade Runner’, through the dark polluted colour scheme of 2019 Los Angeles, the permanent rain and the hellish fires, mythologically alluding through comparison this ‘future’ society to Hades, the Greek underworld. Tyrell’s blindness to the situation, physically symbolised by thick lensed glasses and the falsified symbol of wisdom that is his owl, represents the negative connotations of the consumerist society of the late 20th century, led by the multinational corporations whose only pursuit is in power, success, and where “commerce is our goal.”