Analyse how Frankenstein and Blade Runner imaginatively portray individuals who challenge the established values of their times.

Shelley and Scott dialectically portray individuals subject to similar narrative complications whilst clearly distinguishing their respective contexts

Imaginative portrayal Seminal, pioneering texts – Fr. → Progeny Br. → sci-fi, film-noir, ‘cinematic poem’

Challenge Textual disruption Catalysts for social change and post-modern questioning Deal with universality of fear and anxieties Myth – rationalises intuition or anxiety of culture/context

Established values and perceptions Literature of prophecy and exaggeration

Deconstruction in post-modern literature engenders a loss of certainty as literary protagonists challenge accepted dichotomies in society. Shelley and Scott actively engage with competing paradigms of Enlightenment Rationalism and Romantic Idealism and in doing so contend humanity as a set of values pertaining to emotionality and compassion. Their dialectic portrayal of individuals subject to similar narrative complications over the ethics of creation, is skilfully complimented by subtle distinctions of context. Shelley’s gothic Frankenstein (1817) and Scott’s sci-fi, film-noir Blade Runner (1992) emerge at opposite ends of The Baconian Revolution. The former responds to the Industrial and a French revolution while the latter reflects a Post-Modern, Post-Capitalist world predicated on the devolution of humanity. In both seminal texts however, pioneering styles of post- modernist hybridity and textual disruption induce wider epistemological questioning as voiced through their evocative characters. POINTS?

Frankenstein, like Shelley, was born into a world of change, revolution and conflicting ideas, resonant in her explicit challenge to the emergent rationalist pursuit. Shelley’s tainted prototypical characterisation of Victor as the experimentalist scientist, representative of late 18th century enlightenment figures including Volta, Darwin and Galvini, warns against the dangers of a will to dominate nature and usurp the natural order, and is an objective lesson in the pitfall of rationalism. On the brink of Modern Science, Frankenstein faces a pioneering moral struggle, ‘I though…. I might. Renew life’ he says on one hand, yet ‘What glory would attend the discovery.’ Philanthropic motives are here juxtaposed to those of hubris, Victor’s egoistic aspiration ultimately corrupting. ‘I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam but I am rather they fallen angel.’ The creature’s cry demonstrates through Biblical allusion the implications of miscreation, which fracture emotional and spiritual relationship, conflicting not only with a Christian frame of reference but also Godwin’s championing of the Domestic Ideal. Thus through Victor as the ‘Romantic Scientist’ Shelley subtly critique’s both romantic and enlightenment values, individualism when distorted by scientific ambition illustrated to conflict with Romantic Idealism.

Blade Runner’s amplified opposition to unrestrained scientific advancement distinguishes its analogous dramatic situation to Frankenstein. Although the act of creation is now commonplace, reflecting late 20th century scientific advancements into bioengineering, Scott’s post-modern deconstruction challenges egoistic complacency in a world fuelled by technological growth.

Scott’s opening long-shot of the tenebrous LA of 2019 is specked with imagery of the Mayan Sublime, the symbolic ziggurats immediately provoking an expression of the egotism of mankind. These shadows of the New Enlightenment are further emphasised by Scott’s ironic presentation of Tyrell as the ‘God of bio-mechanics’. The deepening of Victor’s paralleled hubristic tone reflects Scott’s aggrandized call for introspection as rational interest replaces moral consideration. This is demonstrated in Tyrell’s comment, ‘You’re the Prodigal son, you’re quite a prize’, close up shots of his sanitized costume with thick glasses symbolic of intellectual rationalism at the cost of compassionate insight. The creator and created dynamic is thus also utilised by Scott as a vehicle for expressing dissension over enduring enlightenment values that threaten emotional relationship as definitive of our humanity.

The Romantic ideal of harmony with nature is disrupted in Frankenstein as Shelley further critiques enlightenment values, namely anthropocentricity in the period of Industrialisation. The writings of Rousseau, Coleridge and Wordsworth colour Shelley’s writing, betraying not only her personal romantic views but moreover the accepted notion of the natural world as an integral feature of our humanity. ‘I pursued nature to her hiding places’ Victor reflects, symbolic of his dissonant relationship to nature, which is challenged to have the dire consequences. Shelley skilfully alludes to Prometheus in this, as myth serves to rationalise societal intuition and anxiety over the potential for science to usurp the natural order. Thus ruin, perpetual reprisal and guilt are the consequences Shelley warns against through her portrayal of the meddlesome Frankenstein.

The absence of nature and explicit redefinition of what is natural is represented in Scott’s cyberpunk wasteland as scientific advancement comes at the cost of the environment. Echoing emerging environmental concerns that spurned the late 20th century, Blade Runner prognosticates the artificiality of nature. The extreme long-shot of the decaying megalopolis complimented by non- diegetic sounds and slow-camera panning allude to a ‘Dante-esque’ inferno and by extension the potential for man’s fall if he is to persist with his degenerative progress. In contrast to the sublime natural world of Frankenstein, Scott challenges the callousness of the post-industrial era. However Roy Batty ultimately becomes the primary agent for this protest, his Ecclesiastical release of the white dove followed by imagery of the blue sky symbolic of the necessity to restore balance in the natural world. Thus Scott echoes Shelley’s call for the Romantic ideal of natural harmony, challenging the technological attitude that threatens to usurp nature’s significance to humanity.

The ultimate challenge of Frankenstein and Blade Runner is to that of the human status in existence, as when scientific acumen outstrips morality, the lines of humanity are blurred. The Romantic sensibility Shelley incorporates into her creature, resemblant of Rousseau’s noble savage illustrates his humanity through a subjective appreciation for the natural world. The ‘howl of devilish despair and revenge’ the creature releases juxtaposes the insulting nomenclatural system adopted by his creator, to an undeniable humanity, paralleled in Roy Batty. This human tenderness is echoed in the eloquent language of the creature, which further warps the accepted stereotype of man and monster through Shelley’s seminal binary deconstruction. ‘I shall no longer see the sun or stars, or feel the winds play on my cheeks’ the creature laments. Poetic, romantic imagery are here used to evoke pathos, as the creature’s humanistic suffering takes centre stage of the audience’s sympathies. This purposeful reader positioning reflects Shelley’s attempt to bring into question Victor’s humanity, as by challenging contextual paradigms, the creature usurps Frankenstein’s rationalist indifference.

Blade Runner’s post-modern indeterminacy presents the devolution of humanity and contests the subjectivity of distinctions between real and artificial life. The ‘Voigt-kompf’ asserts the film’s grounding irony, in that a machine must be used to determine our humanity, this furthered by the Tyrell Corporation’s motto ‘More human than human’. This idea is built towards replicant salvation as the teachings of the Nexus 6, which prioritize nature and humanity, challenge humanity’s fallen benchmark in society. This is culminated in Roy’s apotheosis at the end of the film, his ‘primal howl’ – comparable to the creature’s – is contrasted through jump-cut editing to repeated shots of an emotionless Deckard to the backdrop of non-diegetic sounds.

Furthermore, the role reversal of hunter to hunted in the final scene can be extended to a deeper transition, Batty’s compassion a challenge to Deckard’s assumed humanity. ‘Moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain’ Batty finishes, his poetic musings reminiscent of a Shakespearean soliloquy, as Scott champions the notion that the language of poetry is the essence of our humanity. Thus Blade Runner more forcefully asserts a challenge to the redefinition of humanity.

The nature of humanity, from different perspectives and contexts is explored and redefined in these seminal texts. The progeny of Frankenstein reflects the universality of fear and anxieties resonant in its challenges to contextual values, distinguishable to those of Blade Runner. Shelley skilfully embodies her retort to unprincipled characteristics of Modern Science in Victor Frankenstein, whilst elucidating the possible consequences of this in her portrayal of the wretched creature. Scott contests a world already desensitized by scientific progress, championing humanistic ideals through Roy Batty, as he asserts the potential for humanity outside man. Gaff’s comment resonates at the end of the film, “It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again who does?” compounding a portrayal of a fractured natural order which necessitates existential inquiry to challenge accepted values. In this the texts share a common through line of individual challenge to society’s expectations.