...Frankenstein and Blade Runner Although written more than 150 years apart from each other, and with very different mediums of production both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ridley Scotts Blade Runner reflect upon the societal concerns of their times in order to warn us of the consequences of overstepping our boundaries and unbridled technological advancement. Subsequently, it becomes evident that despite their temporal and contextual differences, both texts are in fact linked through their common concerns and concepts. Frankenstein was written in 1818 at the height of the industrial revolution. Frankenstein is infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. The story is partially based on Giovanni Aldini's electrical experiments on dead animals and was also a warning against the expansion of modern humans in the Industrial Revolution. Blade Runner, on the other hand was written in 1982 at the beginning of the age of computers. The movie is set in Los Angeles in 2019 inside a post-modern, post-industrial and post-apocalyptic city. The world is devoid not only of nature, but children, sunlight and “real” animals. In the opening scene, film noir characteristics, such as disoriented visual schemes and heavy reliance of shadows and rain are used to show the vast yet dwarfed city. This leads us to believe that this city is a result of past consequences where nature has not just...
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...The worlds of Frankenstein and Blade Runner are effective representations of their context and the values which were catalysts for their composition. How has your study supported this? Throughout time, literature has served well as a window into the schools of thought and social concerns of any given era of human history. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (Director’s cut), 1986, continue this trend. Frankenstein is a typical example of Gothic literature that engages with issues commonly raised during the Enlightenment and Romantic Movement. Blade Runner was composed in the early 1980’s, a time of radical change and development in areas of science and business. Despite their differing social contexts, both texts question similarly ethically driven issues. The question over man’s right to push the boundaries of science in the creation of life has transcended time, growing increasingly relevant with recent advancements in technology. The contentious issue was predominant throughout the Enlightenment period, an era characterised by significant change where reason was valued over religious faith. This contextual significance is mirrored in Shelly’s condemnation of Frankenstein’s experiment through the loathing tone of “now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” She furthers her argument through the monster’s description of Frankenstein as an “unfeeling, heartless creator!”, reflective...
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...magazine, U.S. Catholic (1996), argues that monsters, especially in modern movies, are simply a representation of humans and our disconnection to needy individuals in the real world. McCormick supports his argument by comparing classic monster tales with characters of a certain depth and humanity, such as Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster, that grabs at the compassionate hearts of audiences to contemporary films that often include a united human race defeating alien-like monsters without hesitation. The purpose of McCormick’s essay is to show how most people treat monsters, no matter how they were created or place themselves in this world, in order to answer the question of whether monsters reside within us. Given the article's location in a sophisticated magazine, McCormick aims this essay at an educated audience interested in the human need to destroy, rather than accept, monsters. 1. There are many reasons why monster stories have endured popularity over the years. One reason McCormick points out is the action and adrenaline associated with modern movies. He claims that these movies tend to be designed for theme park rides and video games since they are all about the fight or flight response that adrenaline. The contemporary...
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...UK Walter Mr Mike English 29 Febuary 2012 The Frankenstein Syndrome In Shelley's Frankenstein, it is interesting to use text to ask the question, who's interest lie at the heart of science? Why Victor Frankenstein motivated to plunge the questions you bring life to inanimate matter can? Life of Victor Frankenstein was destroyed because of the obsession with the power to create life where none was before. The monster created shows a representation of all those who are evil in the name of science for selfish cuases. We can use the book to draw parallels of our modern society, show that there is a danger that science creates via a personal relationship between the scientist and the creator of his work. It seems to me that science is done without thought to any affect experiments can have on the basis of disclosure, we may risk all that is dear to us for our creation or study. This is the Frankenstein Syndrome. When describing the monster he created, Frankenstein says: “No mortal could support the horror of this expression. Mother given forth with animation could not be that bad this poor. I looked at him while unfinished, he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it has become that even Dante could not imagine.” (I, 235) It was Victor's reaction to the monster's that caused him to reach out to working in the night. Victor, who for months worked on creating this, suddenly confronted the results of his scientific pursuit. He labored...
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...…….. (REFER TO QUESTION HERE) Every text is a product of its time and may reflect changing values and differing perspectives……. (Which can significantly enhance an audiences understanding of that time and context). The capacity of such values to be ultimately universal is seen within Mary Shelley’s 19th Century Gothic novel Frankenstein and Ridley- Scott’s sci-fi thriller Blade Runner. Despite being written centuries apart both remain powerful reminders and critiques of humanity’s infatuation with science and technology and the dangers of human hubris. Both Shelley and Scott reveal these values through the integration of literary and cinematic techniques …….. (To challenge the established values of their time... However the different time periods influenced the textual form, so the way these values are represented are different, and yet the same message is explored) The context of Frankenstein/ The modern Prometheus is the product of Industrialisation and Romanticism. The novel is ultimately emblematic of the Romantic era, and is in essence a revolt against the period of scientific development, that is Englightment. This period, to quote William Blake of the “dark, satanic mills” spread progress yet at the sacrifice of the natural world…….. Shelley’s cautionary tale is accentuated metaphorically through the tragic character of Victor who forms an obsession with science and technology, in his quest to create life. As Victor recounts his ordeals, his obsession with his project...
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...Frankenstein/Bladerunner In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) humanity’s manipulation of nature paradoxically erodes the human spirit and compromises integrity. Although contextually disparate, both texts explore a creator’s need to take responsibility for his creation, cautioning responders of the dangers of unrestrained scientific progress and conveying humanity’s severed relationship with nature. Where Shelley communicates with a certain ambiguity characteristic of the contradictory Age of Reason and sets her tale against a backdrop of a sublime natural world, Scott portrays a society fuelled by ecological destruction and 1980s corporate abuse. This reflects each composer’s anchoring of their visions in the socio-cultural realities of their time; a fundamental transgression of human values over time. Both texts explore the dangers of uninhibited scientific progress. In Frankenstein, Shelley fashions a gothic world where nature is tampered with and a ‘hurricane of enthusiasm’ drives the protagonist towards abandoning his conscience, prompting Shelley’s valuing of moderation. Underpinned by the Industrial Revolution and an era of scientific change, Victor embodies the obsessive passions and Romantic ego-identities of 19th century scientists. The epistolatory narrative framework adds a disquieting sense of truth to Victor’s retrospective dialogue, “how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge,” reflecting his Promethean disobedience...
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...In this exquisite piece of literature named “Frankenstein”, Mary Shelley depicts Victor Frankenstein, born into a wealthy Genevan family and audacious scientist with a desire for discovery, creating a freak of nature we come to know as Frankenstein’s Monster all through the story-telling framing structure of letters by a man named Captain Robert Walton. Obsessed with old theory books of recreating natural wonders, Frankenstein studied endlessly for decades until he went off to college in Germany. During college, he excelled at his science classes while on the side partaking in several hidden studies to hide the grief of losing his mother shortly after leaving her to go to college. These experiments consisted of delving into the practice of transferring living matter to non-living objects. After concluding with plausible data, Victor Frankenstein took it to the next level; he attempted to create a humanoid figure. In order to fit the entirety of the necessary elements for this being to live as a proper functioning human being, Frankenstein resorted to making him freakishly large and proportionally gigantic. Nevertheless, he had succeeded. The being was alive! Since, the question of technology going overboard as...
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...physical embodiment of the absence of humanity. Furthermore, these films continue to generate more complex and more compelling perceptions of the relationship between humans and technology, which is often made manifest in the mega-corporation. As often as the identity of the “natural” human may be called into question, in nearly all of these films the character the audience perceives to be most human is victorious in the end. Cameron’s Avatar, for instance, sees the protagonist Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) remain on the alien world of Pandora in the body of an alien. Although not innately human in form, it is Jake’s preserved sense of morality and his ability to sympathize with the other characters that give him his sense of humanity. However, in Vincenzo Natali’s Splice (2009), the victory does not lie with the most human characters, but rather with the dehumanizing corporation, which threatens to recreate all of humanity in its likeness. Natali argues that the creation of Dren (Delphine Chanéac) represents the future of humanity in the sense that humans are becoming creatures with equal parts human and technological – a shift that threatens to change society’s perception of what is “human”. Splice is in many ways a modern retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus – a point highlighted by Natali’s choice to name the protagonists Clive and Elsa; a direct homage to the stars of James Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Colin Clive and Elsa Lanchester...
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...Modernity In the 18th century, the enlightenment began to take fruit in the world. In France, the people began to get upset and in the french revolution they took over their monarchy. Which later they gained an emperor named Napoleon Bonaparte. His thoughts were to conquer all Europe and to make it all Frenchify. In Great Britain, the Industrial Revolution began to take place and to affect in a beneficial way to all Europe and America. Modernity is a time period where the people believed in the secularization, being social and having the most modern things in the science area was the best of the best. The movie Metropolis directed Fritz Lang has a very big image in how modernity was represented. In the film, secularization was a big part. For example, this meant that it was a typical post-medieval and post-traditional and became a historical period. The Secularization of modernism is that religion was emancipated. In the movie religion was something difficult to talk about. The workers were making plans in order to see a woman, Maria, give basic lessons of the bible that was christianity. The workers or slaves seen her as a god because she gave them the hope they needed to keep having strength for their family and themselves. The owner of Metropolis, Joh Fredersen, wanted to keep everything under control which meant he didn't want the workers to feel any type of hope in being free. That meant he had to prohibit any type of religion and beliefs. In order to get rid of this...
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...Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Key facts full title · Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus author · Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley type of work · Novel genre · Gothic science fiction language · English time and place written · Switzerland, 1816, and London, 1816–1817 date of first publication · January 1, 1818 publisher · Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones narrator · The primary narrator is Robert Walton, who, in his letters, quotes Victor Frankenstein’s first-person narrative at length; Victor, in turn, quotes the monster’s first-person narrative; in addition, the lesser characters Elizabeth Lavenza and Alphonse Frankenstein narrate parts of the story through their letters to Victor. climax · The murder of Elizabeth Lavenza on the night of her wedding to Victor Frankenstein in Chapter 23 protagonist · Victor Frankenstein antagonist · Frankenstein’s monster setting (time) · Eighteenth century setting (place) · Geneva; the Swiss Alps; Ingolstadt; England and Scotland; the northern ice point of view · The point of view shifts with the narration, from Robert Walton to Victor Frankenstein to Frankenstein’s monster, then back to Walton, with a few digressions in the form of letters from Elizabeth Lavenza and Alphonse Frankenstein. falling action · After the murder of Elizabeth Lavenza, when Victor Frankenstein chases the monster to the northern ice, is rescued by Robert Walton, narrates his story, and dies tense · Past foreshadowing · Ubiquitous—throughout...
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...Texts in Time Texts embody paradigms corresponding to their social, economic and historical contexts. The capacity of thematic concepts to transcend time is manifest within Mary Shelley’s 19th century gothic novel Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s science fiction film Blade Runner (1992) as both pose similar existentialist discourses regarding the fate of humanity. As a Romanticist, Shelley condemns humanity’s intrusive assumption as creator. Similarly, Scott responds to Shelley warning by also spurning man’s ruthless ambition. However, the film’s 20th century context of capitalist greed and mass industrialisation shifts the criticism onto the pursuit of commercial dominance. Both texts employ techniques such as allusions and characterisation to depict similar dystopian visions ensuing from man’s dereliction of nature. Composed during the Industrial Revolution and radical scientific experimentation, Shelley typifies the Romantic Movement as she forebodes her enlightened society of playing God. Her warning permeates through the character of Victor, whose self-aggrandising diction “many excellent natures would owe their being to me” represents a society engrossed with reanimation. Shelley moreover questions the morality her microcosm’s pursuit of omnipotence through Victor’s retrospection “lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit”, as the juxtaposition of “all” and “one” emphasises Victor’s cavernous obsession to conquer death; akin to scientists of her time...
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...Texts in Time Texts embody paradigms corresponding to their social, economic and historical contexts. The capacity of thematic concepts to transcend time is manifest within Mary Shelley’s 19th century gothic novel Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s science fiction film Blade Runner (1992) as both pose similar existentialist discourses regarding the fate of humanity. As a Romanticist, Shelley condemns humanity’s intrusive assumption as creator. Similarly, Scott responds to Shelley warning by also spurning man’s ruthless ambition. However, the film’s 20th century context of capitalist greed and mass industrialisation shifts the criticism onto the pursuit of commercial dominance. Both texts employ techniques such as allusions and characterisation to depict similar dystopian visions ensuing from man’s dereliction of nature. Composed during the Industrial Revolution and radical scientific experimentation, Shelley typifies the Romantic Movement as she forebodes her enlightened society of playing God. Her warning permeates through the character of Victor, whose self-aggrandising diction “many excellent natures would owe their being to me” represents a society engrossed with reanimation. Shelley moreover questions the morality her microcosm’s pursuit of omnipotence through Victor’s retrospection “lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit”, as the juxtaposition of “all” and “one” emphasises Victor’s cavernous obsession to conquer death; akin to scientists of her time...
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...Chris Martinelli Dr. Cross English 100 5/9/12 Myopic Society We saw him, the man, as he entered our shrouded, isolated corridor. He is different than we are and that enraged something in us; but, we could change him by force. With a single drop of blood we could rip the man from all he believes is rational, condemning him to a sheltered life of darkness. We ran after him with devastating force, but he was fast. He was not as fast as us collectively, but something about his movements startled us. He threw down obstacles for us and maneuvered almost as if he had a mind of his own. Even more disturbing for us was the fact that he was alone, able to think and move on his own outside of a group. We smelled his fear, his struggle to escape and this dragged us further in rage. He ran out of a door into the light of day and we realized at this point, for now, he was out of reach. We got a better glimpse of him once he entered the light: he was the cause, one of the creators of what we are. We are the Dark Seekers and we are a creation of man’s greed. We are the monstrous creation of his kind and we must destroy that from which we are created. Through film, directors can show us a world in which mankind is only surviving on a thread of hope. They can show us a society that only lived to further progress today, condemning the future to the aftermath of their carelessness. They can warn us, visually, of what we as human kind are capable of producing in a way that no other media can...
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...CS8300 - Science Fiction Film Semester 2 -2012-13 – Nanyang Technological University Writing Assignment #2: Post 1950s Film: Robocop By: Muhammad Rifyal Giffari bin Mohamed Yacob 1. Discuss what you find most striking/interesting/relevant/significant/innovative about the film and why. There are many striking facets that the film Robocop present from the pervasive and sharp social satire of capitalism, the media and American society, but the most striking aspect for me personally is the heavy use of Christian symbolism, in the most vivid style. This stems greatly from the use of the main character Alex Murphy or later known as Robocop as a Christ figure. As a film, in terms of visual representation alone this connection to Christ can be seen in several scenes. First of all in Murphy’s death scene, it is the most dramatic, drawn out and methodically visceral. The process seems completely to follow step by step with the crucifixion story, with Murphy being forced onto the floor as though being put on the cross and the subsequent shooting off of the hand recounts Jesus’ hands being nailed to the cross. He furthermore is shot in the chest several times and finally suffers a head wound like that of the crown of thorns. One may argue it is simply the style of the film with over the top violence, but it also highlights one of the key aspects of the Christ allegory – the systematic pain and torture endured during the crucifixion. More visual Christian symbolism is used late...
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...By the 1860’s the pandemonium induced by the Industrial Revolution settled as the Second Empire established itself in France. While both took a firm hold on social norms, cultural expectations, and business practices, the machines replaced human artistry. Precisely because of this transition, individual craftsmanship became outdated and obsolete; the big department store, an emblem of capitalism, continued to emerge, dominate, and swallow up smaller competition. As a contemporary issue for its time, Émile Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise comes as no surprise in its concentration on the struggle of smaller shops against the immense success and dominance of the big new department store, Ladies’ Paradise. Although the stark difference between the dying shops of an age past and the avant-garde emporiums of the future equals the quintessential experience of the modernization of the nineteenth century, the symbolic description of the Ladies’ Paradise as a soulless “machine” captures the perspective of what the department store represents. In the novel people resent Ladies’ Paradise and its seemingly unexplainable success. However, not until the “machine” gains a soul does the Ladies’ Paradise become complete and wholesome. Denise felt that she was watching a machine working at high pressure…. these passions in the street were giving life to the materials: the laces shivered, then dropped again, concealing the depths of the shop with an exciting air of mystery; even the lengths of cloth...
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