The significant similarities between texts are more important than their differences
The gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley written in 1818, and Ridley Scott’s ominous motion picture Blade Runner released in 1982, reflects the changing values and perspectives of society. The similarities are not more or less important than the differences. The similarities take on the role of assembling a link between the two texts through shared themes. However, an in-depth analysis of the texts reveals that the themes in Blade Runner are ideologically dissimilar to those of Frankenstein due to their differing contexts. Nature, creation and technology are three concepts, which are present in both texts; however, two centuries of changing values, morals, and ethics has effected the way in which we perceive these concepts changed the way in which we perceive these concepts.
The 1980s context of America and the Romantic context are both similarly embodied by the corruption of the natural world for industrial and commercial purposes. Throughout Frankenstein, romanticism grounds Shelley’s view of nature’s sovereignty where ethics of the sublime and serenity are detained at crucial esteem; whereas disobeying these beliefs is presented to be self-destructive. Additionally, gothic conventions of enhanced emotions are symbolized with the Creature’s excel of the anthropomorphized nature ‘My spirits were elevated by the changing appearance of nature’, which maintains the sublime’s capability to arouse spiritual rebirth. Moreover, Victor experiments with Romantic values by generating synthetic life motivated by his personification “to pursue nature to her hiding-places’, his usurpation of natural powers replicates Shelley’s anxiety of nature’s obliteration. This is supplementary paralleled by the Creature as he compels his multiple carnages at the mountaintop of Mount Blanc, arousing a feel of Gothic terror that implies Shelley’s foretelling of the incongruous natural stability....