Frankenstein And Blade Runner Essays Examples

Both Frankenstein’s monster and Blade Runner are two intrinsically different characters which are historically alien to what we perceive as being normal. However the monster created by Victor Frankenstein is by far the most loathsome and reviled in history and the physical sense of the monster is rooted in Mary Shelley’s almost ghoulish imagination especially due to the fact that she was obsessed with the gothic and the mysterious. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner also focuses on monsters of sorts and these are the human replicants who are out doing all sorts of menial jobs for humans but who are kept apart and cannot lead what one may term as a normal life. There are also parallels between Victor Frankenstein and Blade Runner himself who take on the unenviable task of destroying the monsters, the former is a monster of his own creation while the latter are a threat to mankind. The complex web of love and intrigue which permeates both the novel and the film is also a recurring leitmotif.
The manner in which Frankenstein constructed his monster out of the limbs of other discarded human beings is perceptive and makes us reflect on the unnaturalness of the whole process. Eventually the monster’s creator is punished by his very same creation who wanted to find love and normalcy like every other human being so his departure from being normal was essentially the mutability of it all. The way Shelley constructs the monster in her own mind also demonstrates a fascination with the uglification of man so in a sense, her creation is as far as possible from intrinsic reality.
Blade Runner is perhaps different although the end result is also the same. Instead of one monster we have what are called human replicants who are intrinsically quite different from mankind although they are actually identical from the outside. They are used for hard and laborious work and although they attempt to escape they are still hunted down and also removed by the police. The way the replicants hide in the dingy suburbs of Los Angeles also emphasises their outcast and pariah status which is similar to the monster in Frankenstein.
The similarities with Frankenstein’s monster and Blade Runner’s replicants are myriad and frequent. The monster is composed out of human bodies and his chores are repellent and hideous, something which humans would never be allowed to do on a normal basis. The replicants are also assigned impossible tasks for humans and they can perform them solely due to the fact that they pose no human risk to themselves. This situation is also mirrored in the monster’s case when he is left out in the cold and without any form of human comfort and love. As the replicants also seek to survive, Frankenstein’s monster goes one step further and asks for a mate for himself with which he can build his own life. This is his attempt to return back to normalcy, something which the replicants do not seem intent on doing.
So the monster theme in both the novel and the film essentially explains that this falls outside what we would consider as normal with regard to human beings. So what is described as being monstrous is definitely historically mutable and nothing describes this better than the passages of conversation between the monster and his creator, Frankenstein. The sense of loathing at the creation of the monster is also evident in the third chapter where we have Victor Frankenstein walking alongside the remotest stretches of the Orkney Islands as he begins his dreaded work in two run down and practically destroyed huts. He knew that he had to create another monster to satisfy his original creation and his experience is made altogether worse due to the wild mood swings which he was continually experiencing and which left him in a perpetual sense of dread and unhappiness.
Victor’s desolation can also be mirrored by Blade Runner’s desolation as he goes about the unenviable task of catching the mutants and making short work of them. When he discovers a woman who thinks that she is actually a human being, he also falls in love with her and his task is made all the more difficult. So the leitmotif of the monster is constantly affecting both of the main characters in the book as well as in the film since they must struggle with their own demons to control their own creations. This historical mutation never stops in Frankenstein’s case since he is continually affected by it and ends up swallowed by his own creation. The monster has taken over his life completely and the mutation process can be said to be absolutely complete.
Again one can find similar comparisons in Blade Runner where the mutants take over Blade Runner’s life due to his obsession with them and to eventually hunt them down. He actually loses his own human nature when he begins conversing with the woman replicant who dupes herself that she is actually a human being. The parallel is comparable with Victor Frankenstein who is also unable to continue his relationship with his loved one.
The novel ‘Frankenstein’ is full of those feelings of guilt and obsession which are recurrent throughout the book. We can understand these feelings more fully when we analyse the character of Victor Frankenstein which, as has already been suggested, is based on the character of Percy Shelley. As Percy was obsessed with science and alchemy at a young age, so was Victor Frankenstein. Percy Shelley’s feeling towards his baby son was the same feelings which Victor Frankenstein showed towards the Monster. So in a way the monster is a recreation of the young Shelley by his wife.
“ I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for SUPREMELY frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world”. (Shelley p 235)
This is the way Mary Shelley saw Victor Frankenstein and the Monster in a dream and this is how she has created these two characters in a timeless novel which still intrigues its readers until this very day. The same could be said for Blade Runner which is an intriguing departure from normality and although there is no real monster, the number of replicants allows for a departure of human normality. Thus the difference between the monster and historical mutation comes together quite radically on all counts. The cultural construction of both the monster in Frankenstein and Blade Runner in the Ridley Scott film emphasises the differences which are perceived when viewed from the prism of human reality and existence.