Module_a_Hsc_English_Essay

Despite the contextual disparity, both Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein and Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner reflect parallel values associated with humanity, scientific moderation and nature. While Frankenstein cautions against the ramifications that arise from transgressing the boundaries/values of societal norms, Blade Runner extrapolates these concerns forward, exploring a futuristic world where the forewarned social consequences of scientific advancement and corporate abuse are already commonplace. Both Shelley and Scott scrutinise the importance of humanity’s sense of morality from the perspectives of their relative social and historical contexts. Induced by the American War of Independence, Shelley criticises a stratified society scarce of moral instruction. In Frankenstein the birth of the Creature alludes to The Creation of Man, the Creature reaching for Victor’s embrace, inversely mimicking God reaching out to Adam. Instead, Victor’s rejection of the Creature parallels God’s banishment of Lucifer, ‘the fallen angel’. Victor’s attitude is reactionary and domineering as he ostracises the Creature and employs diabolic epithets towards him such as ‘daemon’, completely disregarding the value of responsibility prevalent in Shelley’s era. Contrastingly, the Creature’s equitable nature is portrayed through his employment of logos, ‘Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you’ and is quintessentially humanized as he utilises biblical parallelism of Paradise Lost: ‘I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel’ Here, the Creature’s rational lexis is juxtaposed with Victor’s insect imagery “Begone! Vile insect”, whereby the Creature’s developed sense of morality in comparison to Victor’s tyrannical behaviour reflects Shelley’s concerns of morally deficient humans and by extension; Shelley berates the use of oppression as a means of governance. Indeed the values of humanity in Blade Runner and Frankenstein are similar at first, but Scott portrays humanity’s social standards as fluctuated through the final confrontation between Roy and Deckard, contrasting authoritative humans against an underclass of ostracized replicants. Like the Creature, the replicants are also moral victims of repression, paralleling the discrimination of homosexuality during the 1980s’ AIDS epidemic. That said, while Deckard attempts to nullify his pain, Roy deposits a nail in his hand to typify his humanistic appreciation of life’s transience, an allusion to Jesus’ crucifixion that conveys the idea that the powerless pay for the sins of the dominant. However, Scott utilises a low-angle shot of Roy against a high-angle shot of Deckard to show an inversion of roles where the hunter has become the hunted, thus accentuating the demise of humanity. Paralleling the Creature’s benevolence towards Victor, Deckard’s lack of morality is ultimately emphasised as Roy forgives him. Through this, Scott insinuates the extent humanity has lost its values of empathy and compassion; the replicants used as a framing device for us to criticise our morality and recognise our creations as potentially ‘more human than human’ than we are without integrity. Therefore, both Shelley and Scott comment that the imposition of power on the powerless is not only unethical, but compels those in power to question their morality when subject to the sympathy of those that are repressed. 
In Shelley and Scott’s context, scientific methodology increasingly focussed on clarifying the mysteries of creation and life. This is extended in Frankenstein where Victor’s obsessive aspiration for knowledge is predicated on unchecked scientific investigation during the Age of Reason. Inspired by the fear of mechanization during the Industrial Revolution, the Creature is a metaphor for the replacement of humans by machinery, which in conjunction with the neoclassic title of FR, The Modern Prometheus, forewarns the consequences of usurping God’s authority by extending beyond one’s boundaries. While Prometheus creates life through fire, Victor “bestows life upon lifeless matter” with electricity, an allusion to Galvanism that challenges values of moderation resonated in Shelley and Scott’s context. Frankenstein embodies a cautionary message through a foreboding biblical reference to Lucifer, “you seek knowledge...may be a serpent to sting you’ to reinforce the irony of Victor’s prolonged toil of pursuing more knowledge with little benefit. Hence, Victor’s unchecked scientific investigation is depicted as ultimately self-destructive and to that end, Shelley induces us to appreciate the need for moderation by exposing the complications of intellectual extremism. 
Likewise, Scott also envisions the dangers of superfluous scientific knowledge, but rather extrapolates the rapid technological progression of the 1980s forward, to represent a society where empathy has been replaced by pervasive commoditisation. Scott incorporates the idea of people as commodities suggested by Roy labelled as a ‘prize’ by Tyrell and conversely, Roy employing god-like connotations towards Tyrell ‘the God of Biomechanics’. The reoccurring eye motif in both texts is represented in Blade Runner through Tyrell’s bizarre bifocals which are a visual metaphor for his myopic hubris, foreshadowing his inability to foresee the consequences of his actions. This is further highlighted through the intertextual ‘Immortal Game’ where Roy outplays Tyrell, symbolic of Tyrell’s eventual demise as a ramification for usurping God’s omnipotence. Corporate greed and principles of Reaganomics are depicted alongside religious imagery, with Tyrell’s chamber, modelled on the Pope’s, representing that corporate wealth is the new religion. Hence, Tyrell’s myopic incapacity coupled with his gothic-like chamber, mimics Victor’s demise in Frankenstein, both texts illuminating the consequences of unrestrained technological advancement.
Both Romantic context and the 1980s context of America are similarly characterised by the exploitation of the natural world for industrial and commercial purposes. Within Frankenstein Shelley’s perception of nature’s supremacy is grounded by Romanticism where values of the sublime and serenity are held at highest esteem, whereas transgressing these values is shown to be self-destructive. Pathetic fallacy of ‘the dreary glaciers are my refuge’ mimics the Creature’s isolation to convey the inherent role of nature in Shelley’s Romantic context as weather supplements his emotions. Furthermore, gothic conventions of heightened emotions are embodied with the Creature’s exaltation of anthropomorphised nature ‘My spirits were elevated by the changing appearance of nature’, which values the sublime’s ability to inspire spiritual renewal. In contrast, Victor challenges Romantic values by creating artificial life instigated by his personification “to pursue nature to her hiding-places’, his usurpation of natural forces reflects Shelley’s fear of nature’s destruction. This is further mirrored by the Creature as he commits his greatest atrocities at the peak of Mount Blanc, evoking a sense of Gothic terror that insinuates Shelley’s prophecy of the distorted natural order. Thus Shelley bequeaths levels of significance upon nature to portray both Romantic and Gothic values, provoking us to contemplate the ramifications of transgressing the natural order. Thus, while Frankenstein portrays nature as valued for its rejuvenating power, Blade Runner represents ‘2019 LOS ANGELES’ as a ravaged dystopia scarred by ecological destruction. Similar to FR Scott parallels Lucifer disrupting the natural order by manifesting a hellish megalopolis caused by society valuing the artificial. The opening panoramic shot of the monolithic Tyrell Corporation exhibits humanity’s reliance on technology during the 1980s, a period of expanding consumerism and commoditisation and hence Shelley’s fears are now commonplace. Valuing the artificial is clearly conveyed through the absence of nature which in conjunction with the artificial owl, exemplifies the false wisdom of a society that instead, unscrupulously values commercialised authenticity. Even when inside the Tyrell ziggurat, its symmetrical design, which is captured by panning shots, portrays the unnatural, whereby the bonsai trees placed throughout the rooms are a testament to Tyrell’s tendency to control nature. Relatively, the perpetual darkness enveloping the ambient world echoes the ecological concerns of deforestation and global warming of the 1980s and thereby Blade Runner parallels Frankenstien insofar as both Shelley and Scott admonishes the disregard for nature as a reflection of shifting values toward artificial compromise. Ultimately, both texts are cautionary tales of their contexts that similarly examine concerns of scarce morality, blinded scientific progression and humanity’s disruption of nature; the parallels between the texts lead to a heightened appreciation. It is however, clear that Blade Runner builds on the ethical consequences admonished throughout Frankenstein, by establishing a filmic paradigm of an apocalyptic world.