Text and Context Essay
Module A: Text & Contexts Essay
Texts are although a form of composer’s ideas and imaginations, they also reflect contexts and discuss different issues in the society of the time in which they were composed. The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Ridley Scott’s noir film Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut are good examples of texts that reflect on contexts and the composer’s ideas and imaginations. Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, is a gothic fiction that represents the context of the 1800’s when the Romantic Movement rose. On the other hand, a futuristic world in which technology is overwhelming and powerful is presented in Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner. Although the texts have differences in forms, features and contexts and were composed over two hundred years apart, they have similarities and links in the concepts of humanity and the concern of science development.
The essence of humanity is a major theme explored in both the novel Frankenstein and the film Blade Runner as they both question what true humanity is. Through the novel Frankenstein, which is published during the period of Industrial Revolution where people started to study things through science and focus on developing technology, Shelly reveals the dark side of human nature and the society. The imagery of Frankenstein digging up graves, taking out dead corpses and examining them creates a strong sense of despair instead of hope and excitement even though that makes Frankenstein a creator of lives; this may be a hint of disagreement of industrial revolution and may imply that the development of science is not necessarily good. The repetition of the words “death” and “horror” helps create an atmosphere of despair, which also foreshadows the coming of sadness and tragedies later in the novel. The juxtaposition of “the beauty of the dream” and the “breathless horror” indicates the reality and the bad outcome of Frankenstein’s ‘dream’ of creating lives and also emphasizes his shock and
Texts are although a form of composer’s ideas and imaginations, they also reflect contexts and discuss different issues in the society of the time in which they were composed. The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Ridley Scott’s noir film Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut are good examples of texts that reflect on contexts and the composer’s ideas and imaginations. Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, is a gothic fiction that represents the context of the 1800’s when the Romantic Movement rose. On the other hand, a futuristic world in which technology is overwhelming and powerful is presented in Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner. Although the texts have differences in forms, features and contexts and were composed over two hundred years apart, they have similarities and links in the concepts of humanity and the concern of science development.
The essence of humanity is a major theme explored in both the novel Frankenstein and the film Blade Runner as they both question what true humanity is. Through the novel Frankenstein, which is published during the period of Industrial Revolution where people started to study things through science and focus on developing technology, Shelly reveals the dark side of human nature and the society. The imagery of Frankenstein digging up graves, taking out dead corpses and examining them creates a strong sense of despair instead of hope and excitement even though that makes Frankenstein a creator of lives; this may be a hint of disagreement of industrial revolution and may imply that the development of science is not necessarily good. The repetition of the words “death” and “horror” helps create an atmosphere of despair, which also foreshadows the coming of sadness and tragedies later in the novel. The juxtaposition of “the beauty of the dream” and the “breathless horror” indicates the reality and the bad outcome of Frankenstein’s ‘dream’ of creating lives and also emphasizes his shock and