English- Blade Runner
FRANKENSTEIN AND BLADE RUNNER
Introduction to text
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
About the author * Published Frankenstein in 1818
Type of text- novel under the Board’s Prose Fiction category
Context
* Galvanism * Luigi Galvani (18th century) used electric current to case a frog’s legs to twitch. * Theories- current could reanimate human corpse’s brain, also caused by chemical reaction * Shelley used these theories to create monster * Genesis * Story of creation of the world including humans, by Christians * Creature like Adam, meaning victor as God * Paradise Lost identifies creature with Satan, outcast unlike satan’s ‘fellow-devils’ * Goethe’s The Sorrows of Werther * Love story of Werther who falls in love with charlotte (married) and ends in suicide * Gothic fiction * Plots involve- young woman pursued by male villain * Setting often castle- symbolise unconscious mind * Frankenstein deals with broader issues of humanity’s place and dealing with knowledge * Plutarch’s Lives * Biographies of Greek/roman figures illuminating moral strengths/failngs- read by creature * Political justice- * William Godwin- individuals will improve if society they live in improves * Romanticism * Movement- connection to nature, hate of industrialism, value/efficacy of art * Art was seen as truth of life rather than e.g. science * Mary Shelley’s husband was one of the great poets of the second English Romanticism generation * Lord Bryon- ‘Byronic Hero’- intelligent, central figure, sophisticated, outlaw * The Faust Myth * Signs soul to devil in return for powers * The Prometheus Myth * Prometheus introduces humans to fire, forbidden by Zeus (king of Gods) * Bounds to rock for all eternity having bired eat his liver (regrows each night) * Victor- defies natural order and God by creating life, punished
Introduction to text
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
About the author * Published Frankenstein in 1818
Type of text- novel under the Board’s Prose Fiction category
Context
* Galvanism * Luigi Galvani (18th century) used electric current to case a frog’s legs to twitch. * Theories- current could reanimate human corpse’s brain, also caused by chemical reaction * Shelley used these theories to create monster * Genesis * Story of creation of the world including humans, by Christians * Creature like Adam, meaning victor as God * Paradise Lost identifies creature with Satan, outcast unlike satan’s ‘fellow-devils’ * Goethe’s The Sorrows of Werther * Love story of Werther who falls in love with charlotte (married) and ends in suicide * Gothic fiction * Plots involve- young woman pursued by male villain * Setting often castle- symbolise unconscious mind * Frankenstein deals with broader issues of humanity’s place and dealing with knowledge * Plutarch’s Lives * Biographies of Greek/roman figures illuminating moral strengths/failngs- read by creature * Political justice- * William Godwin- individuals will improve if society they live in improves * Romanticism * Movement- connection to nature, hate of industrialism, value/efficacy of art * Art was seen as truth of life rather than e.g. science * Mary Shelley’s husband was one of the great poets of the second English Romanticism generation * Lord Bryon- ‘Byronic Hero’- intelligent, central figure, sophisticated, outlaw * The Faust Myth * Signs soul to devil in return for powers * The Prometheus Myth * Prometheus introduces humans to fire, forbidden by Zeus (king of Gods) * Bounds to rock for all eternity having bired eat his liver (regrows each night) * Victor- defies natural order and God by creating life, punished