Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and Blade Runner
Both Mary Shelley’s nineteenth century Gothic horror novel, Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s 1980s dystopic thriller, Blade Runner (1982), expose similar concerns about the consequence of unrestrained technological exploitation, unyielding consumerism and the threats these pose to the natural world. In fact it is through these respective texts, that Shelley and Scott share common values around notions of humanity, its morality and a fear of unbridled scientific progress. As well as instilling man’s seemingly instinctive depreciation of the natural world, showing that the values, ideals, and fears shared by society and mankind have not changed regardless of their contextual changes.
Written during the 19th century, Shelley created this text to satirise the rising current view that nature would be overcome by science. The forever nameless monster speaks with awe about the variety of world cultures both past and present, “I heard of the slothful Asiatics; of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians; of the wars and wonderful virtue of the Romans .... of chivalry, Christianity, and kings.” The emotive and alliterative language through which Shelly portrays the different cultures, presents the notion that it is the individuality and uniqueness of cultures and nations which separates them as being remarkable in their own right. This is very much due to the contextual framework from which the novel was made, as in the nineteenth century, nations remained very distinct from others and cultural diversity was very rare.
The notion, as portrayed in Blade Runner was that, through a union of the world cultures, accelerated through globalisation and consumerism, the world cultures’ individuality would be lost. This idea is expressed in Blade Runner by costuming the citizens of Los Angeles in an array of outfits which are nonspecific to time period or culture. They contrast from Rachel’s 1950’s style, ‘western dress’ to the city dwellers‘ futuristic
Written during the 19th century, Shelley created this text to satirise the rising current view that nature would be overcome by science. The forever nameless monster speaks with awe about the variety of world cultures both past and present, “I heard of the slothful Asiatics; of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians; of the wars and wonderful virtue of the Romans .... of chivalry, Christianity, and kings.” The emotive and alliterative language through which Shelly portrays the different cultures, presents the notion that it is the individuality and uniqueness of cultures and nations which separates them as being remarkable in their own right. This is very much due to the contextual framework from which the novel was made, as in the nineteenth century, nations remained very distinct from others and cultural diversity was very rare.
The notion, as portrayed in Blade Runner was that, through a union of the world cultures, accelerated through globalisation and consumerism, the world cultures’ individuality would be lost. This idea is expressed in Blade Runner by costuming the citizens of Los Angeles in an array of outfits which are nonspecific to time period or culture. They contrast from Rachel’s 1950’s style, ‘western dress’ to the city dwellers‘ futuristic