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Practice Essay
they also explore and address the societal issues and paradigms of their eras.
This is clearly the case with Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein (1818), which
draws upon the rise of Galvanism and the Romantic Movement of the 1800’s,
as well as Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner (1992), reflecting upon the
late 20th Century. Hence, an analysis of both in light of their differing contexts
reveal how Shelley and Scott ultimately warn us of the dire consequences of
her allusions to John Milton’s Paradise Lost evoke the poetic retelling of
Satan’s fall from grace, wherein the daemon’s association with “the fallen
“benevolent nature” into a thirst for retribution. Together with its questioning
of how Victor could “sport with life”, Shelley’s warning reverberates past the
Such a warning also exists within Scott’s Blade Runner, hence linking the
two texts throughout time, where the director echoes the rise of capitalist
ideals and the Wall Street mantra, “greed is good”, through the symbolic
within the religious connotations of his abode, including his voluminous bed,
modeled after that of Pope John Paul II, as well as his reference to Batty as
“the prodigal son”. Such symbols are unnervingly subverted through both the
death at the hands of his own creation. Scott’s warning of the dangers of such
a desire is also evident within the expansive shots of 2019 LA, revealing a dark
The imagery of the “dead corpse” and repetitious use of “horror” upon the
inventor James Watt. Moreover, Shelley stresses her warning through the
charms”, arising from his immersion in science, results in his “deep, dark and
and a more intimate connection with “the pleasant showers and genial
which, together with the haunting synthetic pulses of the Vangelis soundtrack,
violence of her death, with slow-motion low angle shot conveying her
droid, suggests that our artificial creations will ultimately lead to the
Thus, we can see how both Shelley and Scott reflect their zeitgeists in
their texts, Frankenstein and Blade Runner, as they draw upon the societal
differences, both texts are in fact linked through their common concerns and
concepts.
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