Evaluate this statement with detailed reference to both texts.
While Frankenstein and Blade Runner explore universal issues such as the loss of moral and ethical values in seeking knowledge, the way ambition and greed can raise questions about humanity, the importance of nature, and highlight similar didactic messages about the dangerous consequences of these issues, the different contextual values and influences at the times in which the texts were composed reveals the deeper significance of the texts. Frankenstein was composed in the early 17th century in a time of industrial revolution and romanticism, whereas almost 200 years later, Blade Runner was composed post World War 2, in a time of rapid development, globalization and corporate dominance.
Transgressing moral and ethical boundaries due to a narrow obsession with scientific or economic progress has the potential for tragic consequences leading to a distanced relationship between individuals, society and nature. Mary Shelley highlights the way the industrial revolution, driven by mass production and importance of profit lead to many injustices within society, leading to a loss of human values such as love, compassion and respect. Shelly in highlighting the dangers of scientific progress driven by greed and ambition uses the motif of eyes, ‘but I now felt as if a film had been taken from before my eyes, and that I for the first time, saw clearly.’, representing the way Victor was metaphorically blinded when faced with the opportunity for glory and achievement driven by greed and ambition, suggesting that these values during the industrial revolution has the potential for destructive consequences on personal moral and ethical values, leading a distanced relationship with nature. Furthermore, Shelley creates awareness of the impact of a seeking knowledge driven by greed and ambition through the use of the embedded narrative style; positioning readers to see through the monsters perspective and build empathy for it as it is neglected and mistreated, creating moral ambiguities as responders are unable to distinguish between good and evil, criticising romantic values of 19th century such as individualism and the power of the creative imagination, leading to a loss of moral and ethical values. While both Shelley and Scott explore the dangers of scientific/economic progress driven by greed and ambition, Scott’s contextual influences of globalisation and corporate dominance shifts the purpose of the texts to warn against the power and control of commercialism in creating a bleak vision of the future.
Scott reiterates Shelley’s concern about the way we must be cautious when transgressing moral and ethical boundaries in search for knowledge and power to ensure we do not diminish our human values of love and compassion, or