Idea Frankenstein ': Bladerunner's Context Blade Runner'

Idea Frankenstein Context Bladerunner Context
Doppelganger, defining qualities of humans and monsters • Doppelgangers confront
• Ambiguity of narrative: M not real unless F story verified → connection between the two (Gothic)
• Quest for knowledge, revenge, masculinity, eloquence, love of nature: M: “The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal nature bade me weep no more” and F: “my spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature”
• Humanity vs. ambition
• Solidarity vs. connection
• Blurring between the two – creativity, logic, beauty, abhorrence
• Abomination as human → moral dilemma. Isolated, Laconian figure during monologue evokes pity. Rhetorical questions “Why should I pity man more than he pities me? Shall I respect man when he condemns me?”
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“the sun shone upon me as upon man” • City vs.
Country, industrial revolution
• Gothicism – nature, horror, monsters within society
• Science overthrowing God – still human? • Doppelgangers confront
• Knowledge vs. instinct
• Group vs. isolated genius
• Deckard ‘becomes’ a replicant
• Replicants positioned as logical, responsive , intuitive, beautiful: Z: vitality; L: revenge, fear, brutality; P: Roy’s kiss, positioning of tongue, immature, instinctive, honest kiss with R in front of S; R: instinct, reason, curiosity, humour, understanding and acceptance
• Z: public place: mash of culture with their hats on, no connection except murder and death
• L: D’s doppelganger? R (empathy and connection to D) shoots him
• P: death of abandoned toy: materialism killed her: laughing doll
• R: renewal, baptism, dove, blue light sky, lasting connection to D • Impersonal information society
• Migration – different cultures → globalisation
• Contraception•
Responsibility of creator and ethical responsibilities of scientists • F vs.
M
• Tacit deal – F made M so he is responsible for him
• M = empathy, F = selfishness, ambition
• V: greatest good for greatest number
• Progress needs to be tempered by human empathy
• Pride and ambition lead to suffering
• Usurpation of God contradicts responders beliefs and highlight ethical breach “I should have been your Adam, but I am the fallen angel [Lucifer]”
• F pleads for a mate. Foucaulian shift: M more human “You must create a mate for me… I demand it as a right to which you must concede” → “You are my creator but I am you master – obey!” • empiricism and modernism
• scientific development and industrial revolution – no questioning of morals – pantheism
• well received because of hierarchical society – F tells all levels to “seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition” – confirmation of values • Tyrell vs. Roy
• Created seeks out creator – dopplegangers
• Created more perfect than creator
• Created still dependant though independent of creator
• Ethereal vs. physical/ sensual
• Creations ‘more human than human’
• Science and progress at detriment of humanity
• Impersonal and personal connections
• Tyrell objectifies replicants: “she is an experiment, nothing more,” “you are the prodigal son” • Consumerism
• Globalisation – transnationalism
• Capitalism
• Loss of identity through loss of culture
• Mass migration
• Technology as a part of life
Criticism of genius • ‘genius’ → pride, ambition → downfall
• Genius removes you from human connection → God complex
• Progress must not give way to indulgence
• M. objectified in the quest for scientific advancement
• Superficiality of society and lack of concern for human suffering “If you could precipitate me into one of those ice- rifts… you would not call it murder.”
• F’s creation and pride is corruption of God’s work (storm)
• “the cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, he saw around him noting but a dense and frightful darkness”
• “as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump… entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood” foreshadowing
• Destruction of innocence and family – Elizabeth, Clerval, William • Scientists, philosophers and historians elevated to great levels of importance
• Reactionaries to change
• Man creating own destiny – Reformation
• Effects of industrial revolution – science at the cost of humanity – grave robbers
• Setting: distinction between nature and human society, the sublime, Romanticism – Byron and Percy (criticism – applies both F and M to nature), comfort, science lab and university.
• Questions pantheism and ‘casual’ science, galvanism • Being removed from being human → holding yourself above others → detriment
• Instinct and logic is greater than intellect (more human)
• Overcrowded, paradoxical city, C’s inhospitable lab, T’s Godlike palace, S’s dilapidated and pathetic home • Impersonal corporatism, mass media
• Migration – take over of minority groups
• Archetypical evil genius – society moe used to impersonal figures of power
The agony of isolation and the Outsider • Progress ↔ isolation
• Don’t take human connection for granted
• Destruction of Bride: M’s last hope of connection destroyed (setting) lose hope
• Humanity vs. M
• M vs. F • Shelley affair → socially shunned
• Prejudice when revealed she was author (young, 19yo woman) • Genius → isolation
• Knowledge = power
• Safety in numbers • Tough military life, searching for stability, wanting what’s impossible
• Impersonal corporate worlds