CREATION
Discussion I
The theme of creation one of the oldest ideas that exist. Blade Runner, Never Let Me Go and Frankenstein share a common theme of a creation gone wrong. In Frankenstein, the creation is a monster that is shunned by society because it is so ugly and unpleasing to look at. In Blade Runner, the replicants are beautiful, and extremely powerful, unlike Frankenstein’s hideousness, but they are despised by society because they are better than humans. Never Let Me Go is different because they never felt shunned or disliked until the very end. It was then that they realized who they truly were and their purpose. Humans had been shunning them secretly since the beginning but never let them know.
All three of these stories try to make you feel sympathy for these characters even though, as in the case of Frankenstein and Blade Runner, they were malicious towards others. Still you can help but feel bad for these creatures that truly only want to be loved and appreciated, instead of hunted down and killed. In contrast, Never Let Me Go has characters, like Ruth, that while unlikeable, they were not truly malicious. This gives you more of a chance to feel sympathy, whereas in Blade Runner and Frankenstein, you feel this constant back and forth of sympathy and revulsion for the characters depending on their actions.
In Never Let Me Go, you have children that seem exactly like humans. They look, feel, and think as humans, even though they are not. By contrast, even though in Blade Runner the replicants looked and seemed human, there was always things you could spot, and their power and strength made you almost fear them. They were wild cards. Unpredictable androids who could kill, or be good. It was never something that was predictable. Frankenstein was also a sort of wild card, that would change depending on his mood, and the things that were done to him. In the part he is looking inside the window at the French family, you see his tenderness and you almost start thinking that he is good. Then from one second to the other, you feel fear when he lashes out because they shun him. While no one can certainly blame him for this, they depths to which he takes his anger makes it feel unforgivable. In the end he earns the title of monster. The kids in Never Let Me Go felt that same anger, yet never hurt each other physically, nor even rebelled. Theirs was a quite misery. This was what made me the most hurt by their story. It made them feel the most human. Their reactions were calm in contrast to the other two works and this gives the reader that they are more emotionally intelligent.
Were any of them human like? I would say that the only ones I felt that had any human qualities were those kids of Never Let Me Go. Despite what Blade Runner wants you to believe and sets up in the story, the replicants are emotionally cold and distant. They can easily screw as well as kill and for this they are monsters. What makes one human like is their humanity and that involves sympathy towards others. Frankenstein was a killer too. This takes from his humanity. He wanted so much to be human, but by the end of the book, while I did feel sympathy, I also felt a clearly drawn line from the fact that he was not human, simply because he was such a murderer.
Were the creations themselves simply a product of their failed creators though, or were they failures in and of themselves? Were they this was innately, or because they felt like outcasts in a world that constantly told them they were not good enough? In Frankenstein and Blade Runner you feel it may have been both. Both the creators and their creators had a part in creating these monsters. If the creators would have given them more time and energy to teaching them empathy, maybe they would have been different. In Frankenstein, his own father rejects him, because he is too busy to bother to teach him. In Blade Runner, Tyrell is so out of the way, the replicant Roy had to go through great lengths to even be able to talk to him. So really, how can anyone expect these creatures to learn if their own creators could never take the time to teach them any different? In Never Let Me Go, they were well cared for and were strictly taught so they were better behaved but their creator did not care for them also. They were factory farmed one created right after the other.
You have to feel sorry for all of these characters, because they were not given ideal circumstances to live in. The word outright rejected all of them, and made their lives seem worthless. It is all creation, but also of death because in the end, none of the stories end in happiness, they all end in bitterness and sadness.
I wrote this essay in 40 minutes! I had forgotten I had to turn it in and I rushed the last 40 minutes before the deadline. Not bad for a rushed piece.
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