ABSTRACT
Philip K. Dick’s unsettling yet resonating sci-fi novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” adapted into the now cult classic film, Blade Runner directed by Ridley Scott, breathes back to life Mary Shelley’s iconic tale of man’s creation returning to haunt him, increasing the number of redefinitions of this infamous story. While Shelley’s Frankenstein depicts the dark turn of events Victor’s creature turned monster takes, Dick’s androids’ self-awareness similarly leads to dark outcomes, revealing a darkness that is all too familiar. Analyzing both the film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel and Mary Shelley’s notorious gothic tale, I will discuss language in both texts, particularly paying close attention to the words referring to each texts’ respective creations, such as “creature,” and “replicant,” to withdraw the philosophical implications these terms bare on humanness and autonomy, specifically examining ethical dilemmas stemming from the ontological questions these terms evoke. Reflecting on these ramifications, I further discuss how what it means to be human has been overly essentialized, conflating the roots of our creation with what we are, as if these roots serve as a “locus of agency from which various [ontological values] proceede,” to borrow from Judith Butler (519). Each text offers rich undertones which speak to the evocative possibility that such names as creature and replicant are inevitably synonymous with human, forcing us to wonder are we not also simply formations resultant from “such stuff as dreams are made on”?
INTRODUCTION
While the question of “Who am I?” has been prevalent across the humanities, from history and religion to philosophy and sociology, the question of “What am I?” tends to be less explored, taken for granted, getting lost in the self-reflective undertow. Yet, it is precisely with that question that traces back to where everything went wrong for the creature and the replicants as they endeavor to define an answer themselves. With a tradition of praising individuality and subjectivity dating back to Aristotle’s concept of “self-realization,” who, not what, is the primary focus of identity-oriented discussion. For as individuals, we have moved beyond a status of “what we are” a long time ago because we’re sophisticated and unique—or so we have led ourselves to believe. However, this fine-tuned myth leads us down a path that begins with a misstep or rather a missed step: Do we really know what we are, apart from other things, other beings? Is identifying the differences between us (humans) and others enough to clear the air? Do these differences prove final and complete? The creature and the replicants easily problematize these glossed over questions by being so extensively complicated, resulting in an intellection that continues to intrigue, although considered increasingly passè in relation to these infamous works—that is, posthumanism. While posthumanism has several definitions and almost an equal number of alternative names, with regard to this discussion, Cary Wolfe’s treatment will be most applicable:
It serves us well to return to this familiar posthuman discussion if only to dissect not so much what it means to be human, but to explore how this diffèrence, to borrow from Jacques Derrida, informs us of why there is an impulse to differentiate at all.
Although distinguishing humans from nonhumans seems quick and easy by simply comparing origins with convenient names that reiterate the divide (including the term nonhuman), these seemingly obvious dissimilarities seem to compose little more than a strawman argument. By immediately assuming there is a necessary, self-evident dichotomy between human and manmade creations, the argument is reduced to a debate over “real” (as in, natural) versus synthetic. However, therein lies a veiled value system: since human beings’ conception is based in (N)ature and existed first, while the creature and the replicants are manufactured whose existence is chronologically secondary to that of humans’, these secondary beings are considered a kind of “fake” human, thus inherently less valuable. Meanwhile, the concept of “human” has been grossly over-essentialzed, perpetuated as apparent and fixed. This paper’s concern, however, is not one of genetics (alone); rather this discussion over where manufactured beings lie on the ontological totem pole has its focus on a more expansive basis—that of consciousness.
While the debate over whether the creature and the replicants have consciousness is not a strenuous one, the debate over what they are entitled to is. Although there is mostly a consensus on the existence of consciousness in varying degrees among diverse beings—including plants according to some studies like ones done by scientist and director of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences at Tel Aviv University, Daniel Chamovitz, who credits plants as having autonoetic consciousness—there also exists a stratified order of consciousness (Cook). In turn, this order seems to warrant a value system that is at once considered eventual and natural in a chronological sense: humans are natural, primary, original, while the creature and replicant are manufactured, secondary, and imitative. This system also places natural humans at the top of the consciousness pyramid, so to speak, because of the complexity of human cognizance, which includes sophisticated thoughts and thought-processes, such as the notion of existential crisis and the capacity for an ethical awareness with relation to the individual and the community. Moving beyond simple instinct to survive and sustain oneself, human consciousness also consists of the ever-exalted rationality. Rationalism was emphasized during The Enlightenment, during which Shelley’s novel was also released. Undoubtedly, this intellectually robust period was notably influential on Shelley as Nancy Yousef explains, “In its engagement with Enlightenment theories of education, human nature, and sociality, Frankenstein displays Shelley’s penetrating and critical interpretation of masculine constructions of knowledge and personhood” (Yousef 200). The rise in intellectual progress and social change is reflective of the inventive surge during the 1800s, surely inspiring Frankenstein, now acclaimed as a pioneer of science fiction.
Along with privileging reason comes a series of abilities conventionally considered unique to human consciousness, such as the faculties of fanciful imagination and advanced ingenuity. In fact, an entire field of philosophy is devoted to the acute study of consciousness in its multifaceted form(s) known as Philosophy of Mind. One philosopher in particular, the late Dr. Fred Dretske, an American philosopher who specialized in epistemology and the growing field of Philosophy of Mind, handled the question of the particular differences between humans and zombies (a type of nonhuman) in his critical essay, “How Do You Know You Are Not a Zombie?” With the growing trend of zombies in pop culture and media made popular by television shows, such as The Walking Dead, it is striking just how prophetic Shelley’s work truly is. The creature, closely resembling a zombie in form, poses the challenge of establishing the corporeal and rational distinctions between it and humans. This challenge naturally inspires an urge for comparison; however, Dr. Dretske notes:
I’m not asking whether you know you are not a zombie. Of course you do. I’m asking how you know it. The answer to that question is not so obvious. Indeed, it is hard to see how you can know it. Wittgenstein (1921/1961: 57) didn’t think he saw anything that allowed him to infer he saw it. The problem is more serious. There is nothing you are aware of, external or internal, that tells you that, unlike a zombie, you are aware of it. Or, indeed, aware of anything at all. (http://consc.net/neh/papers/dretske2.htm).
As Dr. Dretske pointedly specifies, asking whether we are one thing or another is not really as pressing a matter—how we know we are one thing or another is more disconcerting, more serious. Although the discussion on posthumanism is not new, just like the idea of zombies is not new thanks to Mary Shelley, the way to define consciousness continues to provoke fresh definitions. Borrowing from Dretske’s notion of introspection, or “inner sense,” which Dretske explains, “‘introspection’ is just a convenient word to describe our way of knowing what is going on in our own mind” (Dretske, par 24), another definition, no matter how familiar or commonsensical, can surface. This additional definition can aid in the deeper investigation of interest here: the weaknesses in names in each text that ultimately expose a political attempt to maintain a controlled ontological system motivated by power. As Cary Wolfe raises in his discussion on posthumanism in his work aptly titled, “What Is Posthumanism?” there is a blatant display of intolerance resultant from a strict understanding of a human essence. I intend to establish nonhumans as less ontologically ambiguous and thereby confront the prejudice behind any moral ambiguity towards them much like Wolfe assures:
But as we will see, the philosophical and theoretical frameworks used by humanism to try to make good on those commitments reproduce the very kind of normative subjectivity—a specific concept of the human—that grounds discrimination against nonhuman animals and the disabled [and I would add, manufactured beings] in the first place (Wolfe xvii).
Ultimately, this discussion centers around a self-reflective exercise intended to improve our ethical fitness with regard to the ongoing social ill of discrimination. Marilyn Gwaltney captures this reflective notion precisely when she states, “Reflection on the moral status of the android helps us to think more dispassionately about just what qualities of human life are required for the presence of personhood” (Gwaltney 32). I aim to deconstruct those qualities here with regards to replicants, the organic postandroid, to highlight human prejudice. For as the old De Lacey foretells, “the hearts of men, when [my emphasis] unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity” (Shelley 93). While De Lacey’s statement of hope is meant to comfort the creature, unfortunately its assurance is conditional. Nonetheless, that brotherly love and charity is still the goal here. By examining particular measures of consciousness to prove unavoidable similarities in subjectivity between humans and nonhumans, my aim is to not only expose how discriminating language in each text is flawed and unreliable, but to reveal the more pressing concern of an ontological hierarchy at work in need of address.
Within the field of linguistics, names fit into a particular category separate from words. In the abstract for the longer article, “Proper Names: Linguistic Status” found in the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Patrick Hanks, a lexicographer, corpus linguist, and onomastician, briefly explains a linguistic definition of names:
Proper names constitute an interface between a language as a system and individual entities such as humans, locations, organizations, business products, or pet animals as reference points in the world. Names have two normal kinds of use: vocative and referential. Names identify individuals, whereas words name classes of entities. The use of names is governed by language-specific subsets of grammatical and pragmatic rules. Additionally, within each language a complex system of protocols governs the ‘correct’ use of personal names (Hank, “sciencedirect”).
As referential or representational then, names often signify individuals; however, in Frankenstein and Blade Runner, the creature and the replicants are not considered individuals. In their cases, the function of their names as such, particularly the more injurious versions such as “monster” and “skin jobs” (respectively) extends further in classifying species apart. Therefore, with every classifying name follows a signified meaning or value. The problem occurs when names no longer stand in or merely represent meaning or value, but rather mark and assign meaning and value. Such is the case with the creature and the replicants. Their names signify a value to their being that is not only distinct from human, but is distinctly less than human. However, if that which the names mark, represent, and classify is linguistically uncontainable—that is, the names “creature” or “replicant” in fact do not accurately represent them as not human—then what is in a name after all other than limitations: not only in terms of functionality, but particularly with regard to a more dubious intent to limit certain beings as outcasts. It would seem then that the failings in these names reflect the failings of the creators who employ them, namely, the failure to contain their creations both literally and figuratively. After establishing how little more separates the creature or the replicants from humans, those names as classifying labels will prove inept and ultimately discriminatory.
Upon deeper reflection on these ontological outsiders with respect to the failings in names, what is called “human” no longer seems clear, let alone fixed for “Humans assign arbitrary definitions and enforce arbitrary rules pertaining to these two metahuman beings” (Barr 25). Rather, what is human perhaps moves along an evolving spectrum, a spectrum based not on physiology but on consciousness. Consciousness is treated here as being comprised of two (if not more) defining properties or criteria: having existential crises and ethical awareness. By first determining that the alienated beings in each text adequately express both criteria, the establishing of their consciousness will prove inevitable. However, by further revealing how their consciousness is evidently equal (and perhaps identical) to that of natural human beings, the sign of “human” as a differentiating and ultimately exclusionary label, will no longer apply, reinforcing a reassessment accordingly of the essence of what human actually is.
Applying Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionist microscope to inspect the apparent disparities between those considered human and those called something-other-than, I aim to magnify the insubstantiality of names that attempt to ultimately perform a divide-and-conquer function, urging a reevaluation of the conventional human paradigm. Using Derrida’s argumentative methods in his work, Of Grammatology, where he destabilizes the hierarchical binary between speech and writing, I intend to demonstrate that the hierarchical binary between humans and manufactured beings is equally unstable due to a misunderstanding and abusive use of the term “human” by indicating how all of these othering terms are eventually hollow in their names.
DEFINING TERMS
Before moving forward, there are several key terms used throughout this essay that require sufficient definition. Those terms are consciousness, existential crisis, ethics (with regards to ethical awareness), and the assortment of names used in each text, namely creature in Shelley’s Frankenstein, android in Dick’s novel, replicant in Blade Runner, and of course, human. In no particular order, I will explain these terms in the context of this paper, using various references that supply the most contextually appropriate definition or alternative meanings to these terms, ranging from authoritative texts, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, to more generic but popular sources, such as Dictionary.com. The most prevalent term in this essay and the catalyst for its discourse is human. To be human signifies what exactly? According to Dictionary.com, the origins and root meanings of the word stem from the following:
The key phrases that are particularly relevant and useful in this analysis of the term are the character descriptions of human, particularly the final three adjectives: “learned, refined, civilized.” Using these descriptors, the manufactured beings will be closely compared to the (traditional) human beings in each text. Along with this apparently mundane term, human, come heavy and complex concepts like existential crisis and ethics. Existential crisis is an idiom born out of Existentialism and is particularly rooted in Søren Kierkegaard’s treatment of despair. As such, to define existential crisis aside from its colloquial understanding is to borrow from Kierkegaard who states:
This form of despair is: in despair not to will to be oneself. Or even lower: in despair not to will to be a self. Or lowest of all: in despair to will to be someone else, to wish for a new self (p. 49, 52f.). [Which is explained as follows:] Kierkegaard further divides this section into two parts: ‘Despair over the earthly or over something earthly’ and ‘Despair of the eternal or over oneself’. In the former case, the despairing person despairs over things external to himself, in the latter, he despairs over the spirit” (sorenkierkegaard.org/sickness-unto-death.html).
Kierkegaard’s notion of despair evokes anxiety that can manifest in the form of an existential crisis with regards to the self confronting and being confronted by existence. Meanwhile, ethics here will be treated conventionally. While doing a simple search of the broad term “ethics,” several variations in meaning surface. Variety two, three, and four found in Dictionary.com are most pertinent:
2. (used with a plural verb) the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics; Christian ethics.
3. (used with a plural verb) moral principles, as of an individual:
4. (used with a singular verb) that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions (Dictionary.com).
I intend to emphasize ethics in an informal capacity, unrelated to any specific philosophical or political system, but strictly with regard to the individual, as personalized, and in relation to a community. As such, ethics here will be explored as something progressive and evolving in nature based on personal life experiences that influence and shape one’s sense of what is and is not ethical. Alongside human, there are the terms creature and replicant that carry equal weight in this essay. Again, turning to a common and general understanding of terms, Dictionary.com defines “creature” in several ways, shifting from basic and broad stating, “anything that is created, whether animate or inanimate” to something more specific, such as “an animal, especially a nonhuman,” to including the very thing that was just prior cast as distinctly its opposite, namely a “person; human being” (Dictionary.com). In simple and plain terms, Dictionary.com is suggesting “creature” applies to humans after all. Then there is the much more intriguing and controversial treatment of the word that signifies creature as “a person whose position or fortune is owed to someone or something and who continues under the control or influence of that person or thing” (Dictionary.com). With the word “creature,” there is clearly a wide spectrum of meanings, from plain to political, which will be highly informative and constructive. As for the term replicant, it is crucial to turn to definitions that contextually connect with the film, Blade Runner. According to Timothy Shanahan in his work, “Philosophy and Blade Runner,” replicant based on the workprint version of the film’s storyline is defined as follows:
REPLICANT\rep’-li-cant\n. See also ROBOT (antique): ANROID (obsolete): NEXUS (generic): Synthetic human with paraphysical capabilities, having skin/flesh culture. Also: Rep, skin job (slang): Off-world uses: Combat, high risk industrial, deep-space probe. On-world use prohibited. Specifications and quantities – information classified.
According to this definition, replicant is synonymous with several other words, including robot, all to suggest that this being is synthetic in nature. However, it is important to note that replicant is not originally from Dick’s story. Rather, the term android is exercised in the novel, which more simple means “in stories: a robot that looks like a person” with an embedded emphasis on the fictional sense of the word (www.merriam-webster.com). Replicant, however, was a term adopted from an uncanny place. According to Scott Bukatman, the term was conceived from editor and screenwriter, David Peoples’:
microbiologist daughter [who] suggested some variation on ‘replication’. The substitution of unexplained terms such as ‘blade runner’ and ‘replicant’ for more familiar ones was typical of [Ridley] Scott’s approach, which was rooted in an intriguing combination of the specific and the suggestive” (Bukatman 27).
Lastly, the term consciousness is central to my argument and requires clarification. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, self-consciousness is “Consciousness of one’s own identity, one’s acts, thoughts, etc.; = consciousness” (OED). Under this definition, I will use self-awareness and consciousness interchangeably. To say someone or something is self-conscious is to say they are aware of themselves; however, there is a continuing debate over the wide spectrum of awareness with relation to ethics. To summarize, this debate concerns the ethical treatment of humanoid beings whose consciousness is in question; if granted, their natural rights are further challenging to determine. In philosophy, self-awareness is so extensive a topic that its significance crosses into several branches, including ethics and existentialism. While the discussion of ethics and existentialism are not new in treating either text, perhaps tracing the rhetorical etymology through a Derridian investigation could produce encouraging results, continuing the compelling debate over whether there is an essential difference after all between the human and humanoid in each text. Using a Derridian lens to reread the conscientious word choices in each text will perhaps demonstrate how existential discourse and debates on ethics connect back to a unifying measure of “human”—that is, consciousness.
DEFINING THE PROBLEM
While the question of whether the creature and the replicants should be considered human is a recurring debate, the corresponding questions of how to pinpoint a determining means of confirming their sameness or difference and why there is a debate in the first place are more removed from the conversation. If an adequate number of comparable factors prove convincing in ultimately demonstrating an equivalence in nature between humans and posthuman beings, then the discussion opens up to the follow-up questions of how and why. Any suggestions made here are intended to uncover the chinks in the frail armor of words at the very least and at most expose language in each text as a problematic, political tool willfully exercised in an attempt to shape reality, starting with assigning and categorizing identity among various beings. According to classical considerations of language best represented by Ferdinand de Saussure, “Language and writing are two distinct systems of signs; [where] the second exists for the sole purpose of representing the first . . . [Furthermore,] . . . the spoken forms alone constitute the object” (Saussure 23-24). However, Derrida is skeptical of this belief that language is “selfpresent voice, of the immediate, natural, and direct signification of the meaning,” while the accused, writing, is merely representational (Derrida 2). These texts exemplify Saussure’s point that speech forms or constitutes objects (Saussure 24). Language in each text is no longer identifiable as just a system, a creation (effect), but is rather teetering along the lines of creator (cause) capable of manipulating externality. This manipulation takes the form of social constructs, which includes but is not limited to xenophobic terms, into which the labels “creature” and “replicant” categorically fit. In these texts, words not only fall short in capturing intended meaning but fail in sustaining it, revealing a deeper failing in humanity’s humanity: the damning and damaging of others through language. In this way, words hurt more than the proverbial sticks and stones, forcing upon the artificial beings a harsh existence sentenced to isolation and rejection. Calling some beings this name rather than that name seems simply a matter of semantics; meanwhile saying as much sounds lighthearted and simple enough. However, the semantics are a serious issue indeed.
ON THE CREATURE’S PHYSICAL MAKEUP
Bold as it may sound, for all intents and purposes, Frankenstein’s creature and Tyrell’s replicants are human. Though they are not human in the traditional sense, there is no denying there is something humanly familiar about them. The characterization of the creature is undeniably anthropomorphic, having basically human form and complex cognitive skills. More importantly, the creature is self-aware, and it is this consciousness that makes his demands for rights to companionship and happiness all the more complicated. To begin, the creature is in fact composed of actual human (dead or decayed) body parts, as Victor shares, “I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave . . . [so that] . . . I might in process of time . . . renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption” (Shelley 33),” making an argument against the creature’s humanity based on physicality a challenge. It would appear then “that ‘the human’ is achieved by escaping or repressing not just its animal origins in nature, the biological, and the evolutionary, but more generally by transcending the bonds of materiality and embodiment altogether” (Wolfe xv). The physical variances between the manufactured beings and the natural ones are too few and too insubstantial to sustain a named ontological difference, inciting a more intensive cross examination. If their physical makeup is not convincing enough to draw a hard line, then perhaps there are mental variations upon which to draw.
ON THE CREATURE’S MENTAL CAPACITIES
There lies the trickier issue of the creature’s intellectual capacity and faculties. During his initial years living among the humble De Lacey family in the French countryside, the creature successfully manages to acquire language, teaching himself to read, write, and speak simply by extensively observing this family. Initially, the creature studies the cottagers like an anthropologist, stating:
By degrees I made a discovery of still greater moment. I found that these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds. I perceived that the words they spoke sometimes produced pleasure or pain, smiles or sadness, in the minds and countenances of the hearers. This was indeed a godlike science, and I ardently desired to become acquainted with it (Shelley 77).
The creature’s reference to a “godlike science” is particularly demonstrative of his wider understanding of his world. Not only does he have the mental capacity to make deductions about language from his observations, he has a concept of a divine being. On the one hand, the creature’s notion of divinity implies his comprehension of religion as a concept. On the other, this expression is also his inadvertent admission of an ontological hierarchy to which he belongs as an inferior being. From his response then, the hierarchy’s structure can be inferred as follows: humans are below the god(s) they imitate (reaching a “godlike” level of learning but not as gods themselves), and he, as someone wanting to emulate the cottagers, positions himself as less than the humans. Regardless of the creature’s lower station in this supposed hierarchy, he impressively educates himself with limited reading materials, retelling to Victor, “I found on the ground a leathern portmanteau, containing several articles of dress and some books. I eagerly seized the prize, and returned with it to my hovel . . . I now continually studied and exercised my mind upon these histories” (Shelley 88-89). He also manages to learn vicariously, no less: “While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as it was taught to the stranger; and this opened before me a wide field for wonder and delight” (Shelley 82). Having succeeded in his self-tutelage, the creature inevitably develops greater desires, seeking emotional commiseration: “My heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures; to see their sweet looks turned towards me with affection, was the utmost limit of my ambition” (Shelley 92). Moreover, he seeks companionship, recognizing that “no Eve soothed my sorrows, or shared my thoughts; I was alone” (Shelley 91). With these expressions of crucial missing elements in his life, the creature displays intellectual and emotional capacities resonant in the human condition.
To actualize his aspirations beyond the intellectual, the creature goes through meticulous lengths: from a plan to introduce himself to the blind De Lacey patriarch at “the hour and moment of trial,” (Shelley 93) to stalking his creator, Victor Frankenstein, in order to beseech Victor for a female mate. Initially, the creature attempts to appeal to his creator’s emotions, providing an argument with such pathos and sophisticated rhetoric, even the disdainful doctor is impressed: “I was moved . . . His tale, and the feelings he now expressed, proved him to be a creature with fine sensations” (Shelley 102). Ultimately to no avail, however, Victor will not recognize the creature as a human sovereign deserving of human rights. He denies the creature a companion and subjects him to a solitary life, which in turn only motivates the creature’s vengeance against his maker, “for that can only drive you to desperation, and not instigate you to virtue” (Shelley 94). What starts this departure from virtue is the creature’s ongoing introspection on his existence. Along with his increase in knowledge follows the heaviness of heart as he contemplates pivotal philosophical themes characteristic of the times in which the novel was written as:
The novel’s account of the creature’s education responds directly to eighteenth-century philosophical conceptions of human nature . . . scholars identify the locus classicus of modern philosophical inquiry—the mind meditating on its origins in isolation, abstracted from the physical and social body—as an unworkable starting point from which to think through the development of cognition, the acquisition of language, the capacity for ethical judgment” (Yousef 200).
Though undergoing a wide spectrum of emotions, the creature is limited to a human ontological standard, resulting in a constant state of identity crisis, as he contemplates, “I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans” (Shelley 84). Unable to find an answer, let alone a willing interlocutor with whom to converse, the creature is forced to attend to his existential crisis alone.
ON THE CREATURE’S EXISTENTIAL CRISIS
From moments of childlike curiosity and wonder while observing the De Lacey family, to intellectual growth while earning a self-taught education, followed by disheartening and violent rejections from the younger De Laceys, to finally confronting Victor about devising an equal in make and model, the creature constantly reflects on his own quality of life—or more accurately, the lack thereof. During these periods, the creature undergoes several instances of existential crisis, as Josh Bernatchez points out, “He [the creature] consistently displays the capacity and drive to be something else” (Bernatchez 74). It is precisely this capacity to be something else, this drive to progress and transform that exhibits the creature’s consciousness as not only sophisticated but existentially human. Not only has the creature the capacity and drive, motivating the desire to improve himself and his circumstances, he has such a keen sense of self-awareness, it enables him to recognize life must be better than his current state. Left to his own devices, isolated by virtue of being the only one of his kind, estranged from his maker, the creature is forced to focus on his plight, privately reflecting on his unique existence as a damned one, as Mark Mossman describes:
What the creature experiences through the narrative, from its birth to its last scene with Walton, is a continued repetition of scorn, hatred, and fear, a constant construction of monstrosity. The creature learns itself in this way; it becomes “unnatural,” “abnormal,” again a monster through its consumption of “cultural artifacts” (to again cite Davis), and through the practice of everyday life. What the narrative enacts, then, is the creature’s inability to resist this overwhelming definition of itself by culture” (Mossman, par. 19).
Based on his limited but traumatic experience in and with the world, the creature forms a notion of himself that is in fact not from himself, but from human society. The constant disapproval from the outside world reminds the creature that he himself is outside of this world, creating deep existential anxiety. While meeting old De Lacey for the first time, there are declarations of this anxiety along with the expected nervousness when the creature admits, “I am full of fears; for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world for ever” (Shelley 93). Since the creature is taking on the great responsibility of introducing himself to the public, he is in constant doubt: over his hopes, his choices, his place in the world—his being. However, his reflections are not singularly focused inward as he seeks validation from the external world as well. Having encountered more scarring reactions from humans than soothing ones, the creature develops an ethical awareness largely because he wants to be treated more justly by the human community.
ON THE CREATURE’S ETHICAL AWARENESS
To be excluded for being nothing other than oneself is an objectionable shame, indeed. The creature suffers great injustices for being “ugly,” an aesthetic judgement that is itself arbitrary and about which he can do little having been made in this uncommon way. Likening himself to an out-of-place animal, he explains, “It was as the ass and the lap-dog, yet surely the gentle ass, whose intentions were affectionate, although his manners were crude, deserved better treatment than blows and execration” (Shelley 80). Realizing that he, like the ass, is a victim of circumstance, the creature judges that he is being treated unfairly. Moreover, he reflects on his aspirations with respect to his self-worth, rationalizing, “I asked, it is true, for greater treasures than a little food or rest; I required kindness and sympathy; but I did not believe myself utterly unworthy of it” (Shelley 92). From this sentiment, the creature exhibits an understanding of his value as an individual comparable to any other. This growing sense of fairness and its acute absence in his own life lead him to his inevitable, vengeful path through which he destructively copes with his suffering.
Among many moments that speak to his ability to distinguish ethical situations is the exclusive moment he is finally gently received by none other than the blind, old De Lacey. Because he is blind, old De Lacey acknowledges he will be particularly helpful, stating, “I am blind, and cannot judge of your countenance, but there is something in your words which persuades me that you are sincere,” giving the creature the opportunity to be heard (Shelley 94). Furthermore, the old De Lacey assures the creature that “it will afford me true pleasure to be in any way serviceable to a human creature” (Shelley 94). Old De Lacey not only proves to be the human exception being actually humane, but he also points out just how imprecisely “unhuman” the creature is, having assumed the creature is human all along. At this warm welcome, the creature prefaces his plan to introduce himself to the community, explaining:
They are kind—they are the most excellent creatures in the world; but, unfortunately, they are prejudiced against me. I have good dispositions; my life has been hitherto harmless, and, in some degree, beneficial; but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable monster (Shelley 93).
The creature is all too aware of the fact that his appearance forfeits any chance of him being received fairly upon first impressions. He observes time and time again how poorly people treat him despite his philanthropy.
Comparing the callous reactions of various villagers throughout his travels with how little his inner character matters in each encounter, the creature deduces a plain but poignant understanding of ethics. Often, he asks himself rhetorical questions that pose ethical dilemmas, such as, “Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?” or “Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion and friendship?” (Shelley 83, 91). Such moral inquiries mostly revolve around his particular state as more than just a physical monster, more than just a social outcast, but an ontological deviant and illustrate his evolving ethical awareness. Accordingly, the creature reflects on his deplorable state as something rather than as someone. Having gained a glimpse of mankind’s history from such literary epics as “Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch’s Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter,” (Shelley 89) which portray man as both terrible and terrific, the creature poses yet another morally reflective question: “Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?” (Shelley 83). Based on personal experiences and a study of humanity’s moral history through literature, the creature formulates a sense of ethics, which serves to motivate and justify (to himself) his desire of revenge for all the maltreatment he endures.
ON REPLICANTS AS MORE HUMANOID THAN ANDROID
Equally as perplexing in form and faculties are the replicants who are created in the image of mankind, so empirically differentiating them requires a whole professional unit known as blade runners. Unlike the original androids in Dick’s novel, replicants are physically organic in nature rather than robotic. Stemming from literal microbiological roots at the word’s conception, the term overtly references a biological versus solely mechanical makeup as originally illustrated in the novel. Nonetheless, interacting with androids in Dick’s novel initiates a serious conversation, as Gwaltney asserts, “Thinking about the moral status of androids gives us a test case, a model, that we are emotionally removed from, for thinking about the moral status of different stages of human life and the relationship of those stages to each other;” (Gwaltney 32). While Gwaltney’s assessment of the initial androids is accurate, this test case becomes more personal as the stakes are raised when the androids are now humanoid. As a result, the term “replicant” poignantly muddles what would otherwise be a simpler and sturdier physical distinction. Additionally, replicants are designed to serve multiple human needs and desires, from mundane tasks around the house or workplace to more specialized functions such as a “basic pleasure model,” or prostitute, like Priscilla “Pris” Stratton (Scott, Blade Runner). Thus, they perform just like humans, functioning as secretaries as well, like Tyrell’s own sophisticated replicant, Rachel Rosen. As these replicants have become more advanced and sophisticated, there is a need to alter their design to curtail their increasing uprisings. Although the Nexus 6 replicants are predesigned with shortened lifespans, amounting to only four years, those that broke away from their “masters” to live of their own free will are not only technical “hiccups” among Tyrell’s overall stock, they are, existentially speaking, anomalies due to their heightened sense of self-awareness.
With this greater self-awareness comes a Pandora’s Box worth of possibilities, not least of which is great responsibility to oneself. The rebellious replicants, Leon, Pris, Zhora, and their leader, Roy, become direly aware of their imminent expiration or “retirement” and desperately strive to override Tyrell’s built-in safety to live life as they wish, not as they were predesigned. This shortened life-span in addition to a replicant’s limited lifestyle reveal the horrible truth that “The humans have, after all, created a race of slaves with a built-in death sentence—four-years-to-life” (Francavilla 11). The horror of this realization evokes a variety of emotions from fear to rage in the replicants, much like Shelley’s creature, as they cope with their existential crisis. Their reactions to this dilemma are no less human despite their manufactured origins. On the contrary, their response reflects that of humans, as Joseph Francavilla observes, “Batty functions also as a mirror for Deckard’s self-examination and self-questioning” (Francavilla 11). As reflections then, the replicants equal humans in terms of consciousness in their capacity to introspect. Their ability to analyze their quality of life as lacking or as derisive compared to humans speaks to a counterpart to existential reflection—ethical awareness.
ON THE REPLICANTS’ ETHICAL AWARENESS
Manufactured rather than birthed, the replicants are cornered into an existential predicament: to live a chosen life or a controlled one. With that pressure, the replicants come to realize they are more than just their technical form and function, summed up in the film’s alternate pejorative name, “skin jobs” (Scott, Blade Runner). They begin to develop a sense of individuality. With this growing self-awareness, follows their urgent petition for what their makers take for granted: a right to exist. Among those that renounce the replicant life, Rachel and Roy are the most exemplary of passive and active protests, respectively.
For example, when Rachel is being tested by blade runner, Rick Deckard, she realizes her ontological status as either human or replicant is in question. Whether being defensive or evasive, Rachel retorts to Deckard, “Is this testing if I am a replicant or a lesbian, Mr. Deckard?” Her wisecrack is an attempt to break the tension as well as present herself as “normal,” using the joke to express a kind of human-like nonchalance to divert any doubt of her ontological identity. While humor is a common defense mechanism, Rachel’s quip is a particularly persuasive attempt to appear composed and confident that she is human. Rachel displays a sophistication that indeed offers Deckard a run for his money, since he has to work harder to decipher if Rachel is a replicant, as Tyrell confirms when he inquires, “It took more than a hundred [questions] for Rachel, didn’t it?” (Scott, Blade Runner). Despite being trained to detect the differences, Deckard struggles during Rachel’s test, and the struggle deepens once he falls in love with her, which brings into question, can replicants love (a good question best saved for a another discussion). Finally, Rachel expresses her resistance to a replicant life, not only in responding defensively to Deckard’s interrogation, but by running away since meeting Deckard, realizing the hard truth that she is simply very sophisticated for her kind.
Meanwhile, Roy Batty, the most advanced of the Nexus 6 replicants and the leader of the rebels, is the most telling example of an active protest against being reduced to a second-class citizen. Like the creature, Roy seeks his maker, Tyrell, to demand what he believes he is owed. For the creature, the demand is a companion; for Roy, it is time. In the scene when Roy confronts Tyrell he openly orders, “I want more life, Father” (Scott, Blade Runner). Perhaps due to the fact that Roy is running out of time or simply because he feels no need for pretense, he directly asks for more life, not only a “modification,” as Tyrell initially suggests. Ultimately denied when Tyrell explains the irreversibility of Roy’s organic makeup, Roy takes out his frustration on Tyrell, “giv[ing] him the kiss of death before crushing his head” (Francavilla 11). In this moment, Roy’s emotional reaction speaks to the injustice of his plight. He in turn executes his own understanding of justice: seeing as how he must die, he kills Tyrell to even the score. Though “killing his creator Tyrell, Batty realizes he is killing himself,” for him, in that moment all is fair (Francavilla 11).
Eventually, Roy succumbs to deep existential resignation. Demoralized, he accepts the end is nigh in his final dialogue, or more so a monologue during which Deckard is merely an observer. Withdrawn and at the brink of expiring, Roy confesses to Deckard, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe . . . All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears . . . in rain . . . Time to die.” (Scott, Blade Runner). When Roy stresses “you people,” utilizing the second person, he makes it a point to single out people overall yes, but he also seems to emphasize certain people versus others, implying himself among the general population of people, human or otherwise, just not the ones accentuated here in his monologue. Furthermore, in this scene, Deckard serves as a final link to humankind since “saving Deckard, he (Roy) understands he is saving until the last minute that part of himself which is truly human” (Francavilla 11). Whatever this “truly human” part is called, the observation remains: Roy’s replicant sensibilities are perceivably comparable to humans, particularly manifested in his dejection over his preexisting condition, both arbitrary and irreparable.
In his final moments, Roy is clearly despondent, while Deckard is visibly moved, much like Victor after hearing the creature’s tale. Through Roy’s sorrow and Deckard’s sympathy, director Ridley Scott ensures audiences recognize that Roy, though a killer, “At the same time, he is no villain, but actually a Promethean hero with a noble, tragic fate. [And] He is a nobler and better ‘man,’ in many ways, than most of the humans in the film” (Francavilla 11). It is worth noting, in order for an individual to be sympathetic, one must be able to comprehend and imagine that individual’s pitiable experience in order to emotionally connect. Scott’s intentional demonstration of Roy as a sympathetic character towards the end is evident from Deckard’s reactions, mirroring those of the viewers, which implies Roy is connectable to humans and vice versa. His technical status as a replicant does not inhibit his capability to be a sympathetic character nor our ability to sympathize with him. Sympathy implies a sense of ethics: there is an understanding towards the sufferer because there is an acknowledgement of some wrongdoing imposed upon him. That acknowledgement serves to demonstrate Roy as both a sympathetic character and as an ethically attuned one who observes he is wronged just as we do since we can connect to him emotionally. His sadness is our sadness because this sad situation reflects a story that universally perceived as tragic. Roy recognizes this tragedy, as does Deckard and the audience; all parties recognize the same tragedy because they share the same capacity for ethical awareness.
In Rachel’s subtle moments of protest, as well as more declarative ones like that of the creature’s demonstrated by Roy, the replicants express outcries against a fundamental injustice to their existence as unnatural humans. Once they have realized the cruel truth of their existence, namely that they are limited to their designed purpose, the replicants rebel, resorting to violence when threatened by human society’s replicant tests or by blade runners, like Deckard, assigned to hunt them. Ultimately, the replicants desire equal rights as those exclusive to humans: they seek more time to live, freedom, and even companionship (demonstrated by the romantic relationship between Roy and Pris). These pursuits sound awfully similar to those listed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence: “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Interestingly, these inalienable rights are born from a concept of natural human rights, which notably came from The Enlightenment. What Roy and his cohorts’ rebellion represents is an acute observation of the unethical circumstances surrounding the replicant condition. Exhibiting mental capacities and traits reflective of human consciousness, Rachel and Roy exemplify the instability of both the essence of human and the superficiality of the term replicant.
CREATIONS VS. HUMANS RECAP: A FAILED COMPARISON
Between the creature and the replicants, there are shared concerns and capabilities, which parallel humans in fundamental ways. Frankenstein’s creature impressively teaches himself how to read and write through long hours of observation and study of the humble French cottagers carrying on with their day to day routine. Now more educated, he is informed of his existential and ethical disqualification from the human title. For the replicants, they are predesigned to serve human needs and carry on specific human-designed and human-oriented functions. Yet, though they may behave like humans, their actions are reduced to performance versus prerogative. In response to this dichotomy, some replicants rebel, deviating from their preprogrammed dispositions. In doing so, they demonstrate the capacity for wanting more: more from existence and more equality from humanity. Both the creature’s desire for a more fulfilling life, having realized he is constantly abhorred and mistreated, and the replicants’ desire for more time serve as cases in point: there is less of a disparaging variance based on mental distinctions after all.
While the essential differences ultimately prove vapid and thin, the use of the terms “creature” and “replicant” represent the human interest of establishing and fortifying a distinction through repetition. This repetition is key in sustaining a belief system that is based on segregation by privileging humans as primary over manufactured beings as secondary, natural over synthetic, essence over existence. However, for this belief system to succeed, there is an implicit necessity of the outsider in order to identify what counts as inside. This discriminatory strategy is found in Saussure’s work on linguistics, according to Derrida’s critique. Derrida deconstructs Saussure’s model of linguistics that ostracizes writing as outside and privileges speech as inside. In observing this trend, Derrida points out:
It is not by chance that the exclusive consideration of phonetic writing permits a response to the exigencies of the “internal system.” The basic functional principle of phonetic writing is precisely to respect and protect the integrity of the “internal system” of the language, even if in fact it does not succeed in doing so. Why else would he (Saussure) give so much attention to that external phenomenon, that exiled figuration, that outside, that double? (Derrida 3).
That question can be posed here as well: Why else would humans, in each text, make such a fuss over the synthetic beings, going as far as to name them something other than human, to emphasize their second-rate existence through this name, then to hold them accountable to their creator namely for being creations? As Derrida infers, it is no accident that these creations and the names that brand them as such are part of the system if only as an exiled part.
While the intentions behind each term vary per speaker, largely the terms are overtly derogatory, punctuating a desire to distance the human speaker from the nonhuman referent, who is categorically considered less than because of being other than. Both Frankenstein and Blade Runner highlight discriminating terms, serving as commentaries on contemporary problems of prejudice, which Sarah Winters speaks on, stating:
The novel’s characterization of prejudice as complicit with social injustices and thus as morally compromising was also based on an empiricist presupposition that because they are merely automatic and often irrational assumptions instilled through education and custom, prejudices can be overcome through counter-evidence, concerted mental retraining, or the activation of a just conscience” (Winter 77 ).
Moreover, the act of othering through names is akin to what Derrida calls the “constitutive outside,” which refers to something being defined by differentiation. With regard to the relationship between language and writing in his work, Of Grammatology, Derrida explains the traditional perception of the outside (writing) by virtue of its constitution, stating “If writing is nothing but the ‘figuration’ of the language, one has the right to exclude it from the interiority of the system” (Derrida 2). In other words, because X is not Y, X is intrinsically external to Y. Accordingly, if Dr. Frankenstein produced something not human, then it is ineligible to be called human. Therefore, it must be called any series of disparaging names, at the very least “creature” and at the very most, “monster” or even “demon.” But as we have already discussed, the actual differences between man and his creation are not so distinct, clear, nor fixed, leaving only unsubstantiated titles that operate out of convenience and prejudice. Victor does not want to associate himself with his own creation after realizing how terrifying it looks, responding, “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?” (Shelley 35). Furthermore, Victor immediately resists any connection to the creature from the very start, recalling, “Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep” (Shelley 36). Ironically, his initial resistance is followed by extreme obsession as he finally accedes to confronting the creature after a lifetime of failingly eluding his relation to and responsibility for it.
For both Victor and Tyrell, ignoring matters never resolves the problem. This problem is not their creations, rather themselves as egotistical creators. In the beginning, Victor expresses to Walton his ambition for “A new species [that] would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve their’s” (Shelley 33). With words such as “bless me,” “owe,” and “claim,” there is a clear message of his desire for praise and power from his rhetoric alone. Meanwhile, it is not solely his words but his expressions that convey Tyrell’s ego. His smug expression after Rachel’s replicant test reveals how pleased he is with himself and his technology. Furthermore, the scene when Roy confronts him for more life, Tyrell answers him with some biomechanic expertise of which Tyrell later dismisses as “academic” (Scott, Blade Runner).
Immediately after, however, Tyrell as a proud creator, waves his index finger with self-satisfaction and explains to Roy, “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly, Roy. Look at you. You’re the prodigal son. You’re quite a prize” (Scott, Blade Runner). To call Roy a prize is to objectify him, depriving him of personhood, distancing him still as nonhuman. While his prideful paternal finger-waving as he lectures Roy on the metaphor of light typifies Tyrell’s ego. Seeing as how superficial the differences are between humans and the created beings after a closer examination of their commonalities of consciousness, the profounder problem surfaces: humans’ self-serving and self-preserving drive to obtain then sustain power, using the damaging effects of language to other the created beings with pejorative names that frame them as inferior.
SYNTHETIC MEANS SECONDARY AS MYTH: CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
No longer just a question of what physiologically or even mentally is human, the ontological angles offered here on the humanism debate present it as more of a comparison of consciousness. Similarities in consciousness between natural humans and synthetic ones—expressly evident through each created being’s existential crises and their evolving sense of ethics—redirect the ontological discussion about both texts from, “What is human?” to rather, “How are they similar?” and finally, “Why debate the differences?” By treating the creations as inherently outside of essentialized human parameters, the creature and the replicants are subject to being utterly displaced: they simply have nowhere to go because they belong nowhere. As such, it seems they require new spaces to belong to, causing us to wonder “If, however, the posthuman truly involves a fundamental change or mutation in the concept of the human, this would seem to imply that history and culture cannot continue to be figured in reference to this concept” (Wolfe xvii, quoting R. L. Rutsky). While the posthumans certainly have their differences from humans, to dissolve the human concept altogether is fruitless. Tatiana Bertek brings up this point while quoting Cary Wolfe:
Building on Michel Foucault, Cary Wolfe argues that “the point is not to reject humanism tout court – indeed, there are many values and aspirations to admire in humanism – but rather to show how those aspirations are undercut by the philosophical and ethical frameworks used to conceptualize them” (Bertek, par. 2).
Despite self-awareness and a sense of ethics having been traditionally quarantined to what constitutes “human,” these posthumans also contain these same constituents after a closer inspection, resulting in questioning the idea of “human” but not necessarily disowning it. This distinction leads us to further wonder if being called human or nonhuman is a necessary debate at all. Are these not just labels, just a case of semantics we are dealing with, regarding not so much a biological discussion, but a philosophical one? On the one had yes, a trivial case, but on the other, quite the contrary, since “creature/monster/wretch/demon” and “replicant/android/robot/synthetic human” are revealed as prejudicial nomenclatures used to divide one group of beings from another, to create an ontological hierarchy similar to the linguistic hierarchy Saussure prescribes and of which Derrida distrusts. This skewed structure results from a fundamental bigotry that ultimately fails to sustain a biased order with classifying, derogatory names aimed at defining and branding the marginalized as inferior. Strange to think that intolerance goes beyond cultural and social categories to that which is even more fundamental yet no less constructed—being. As being(s) evolve(s), so must language, not to capture or imprison meaning, but to expand with it, and in turn invalidate essences and embrace existential emancipation, starting with ending the conscious game of naming the disenfranchised as ontologically disqualified.
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