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The Left Hand Of Darkness And Blade Runner Analysis

Decent Essays

Composers create a representation of the future by incorporating contextual beliefs, knowledge, and values to highlight the impact of humanity’s hubris. Despite a chronological disparity, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) excoriate the cognitive estrangement of mankind’s attempts to usurp the role of God and our Technicism ideology; mankind’s obsession with transcendence will ironically result in the regression of human integrity. Similarly, Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) augur the requirement for change, hence excoriating humanity’s ignorance and desensitised perception of sovereignty. The hubristic and immoral pursuit of transcended scientific knowledge is the basis for humanity’s tragic downfall. Shelley’s characterisation of Victor as a human with a metaphorical “thirst for knowledge” and a hubristic desire to “tread a land never imprinted by the foot of man” alludes to Shelley’s Age of Enlightenment concerns of galvanism and “playing God”. Using dramatic irony “I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge”, Shelley characterises Victor’s insatiable desire for knowledge and his attempts to undermine the constitution of humanity as the “Modern Prometheus”. This hamartia is excoriated by the sexual connotations of Victor’s “fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature” where his attempt to play God, ironically highlights the regression of humanity to a primitive and

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