Module A essay Frankenstein

2 Found helpful • 3 Pages • Essays / Projects • Year: Pre-2021

Within every individual lies a rationality, which dictates the pursuit of aspirations. The ideas that arise may flourish from an altruistic or benevolent need to make change, or simply a burning passion to overcome past the tamed lands and to submerge ourselves into the unknown. Despite the numerous changes undergone throughout history that have enriched and conveyed numerous fanatical ideologies, Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein remains undoubtedly a precursor indelibly fixated within present society. Written during a time of great change and upheaval, Frankenstein functions as an existentialist discourse regarding the fate of humanity. Composed in the midst of industrial revolution and radical scientific experimentation, Mary Shelley typifies the Romantic Movement as she forebodes the dangers that emerge from radical change. With galvanism exacerbating over Europe the pursuit of science and technology exceeded societal expectations, promoting inevitable progress over superstition and religious dogma. However after 150 years, the film Blade Runner directed by Ridley Scott draws on the long history of gothic aesthetics to reengage with issues it raises in new and altered cultural contexts at the end of the industrial age. Blade Runner takes 1980’s globalisation as its point of departure for imagining a dystopian future towards which contemporary history seems inevitably inclined. Texts embody paradigms corresponding to their contexts; concepts which till date remain prevalent; the violation of the integrity of the human body, the duality and responsibility of man as well as nature which has began to wither drastically within modern day societies. Their didactic nature exposes horrific truths centered about our human condition exudes the importance of this tale within the modern world making them texts of modernity The invasion and therefore the interference with the natural order during the Era of Enlightenment was spurned a modern day scientific project; one that lacked hindsight to the ramification that inevitable follows. The plight of destruction caused by the pantheistic view of God and humanity is what essentially causes an imbalance in the natural world crippling the human condition further into desolation. Shelley’s warning permeates through the character of Victor, whose self aggrandizing diction “many excellent natures would owe their being to me” exposes the foibles present within Shelley time where social conventions began to move away from religious belief and doctrine in pursuit of ideals of scientific rationalism and progress. Moreover, the recurring mythical illusions to Prometheus “how dangerous it is the acquirement of knowledge” portray Victor as a character whose hamartia of blind ambition foreshadows his own downfall and dehumanization where he does not relinquish nature and the sublime universe in pursuit of his knowledge. However unchecked ambition as perceived through Victor for self glorification allowed imagination to guide idealistic tendencies representing humanity’s hubris and how this folly transgresses over God, this paradigm being the ultimate destruction of victor. Shelley enunciates the dangers of assuming power over god by means of science and technology and the conundrums it creates on our humanity.

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