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Symbolism In Monster Culture

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“Quite an experience to live in fear” (Scott). Humans view death as final and therefore fear it. Death brings the unknown and humans deal with this fear by either suppressing it or seeking comfort in religion. To die is to become insignificant. Humans have a deep desire to cheat death. In Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner fear of death and specifically the unknown dictates many of the characters’ actions. Jeffery Jerome Cohen’s Monster Culture gives seven theses as to why society creates the monstrous and its functions in our society. The replicants portray a monstrous entity, feared and targeted. They function as a reflection of the society. Tyrell states the replicants are “more human than human” (Scott). The ontology of Roy embodies humanity’s …show more content…

The use of parallelism in Blade Runner during the fight scene alludes the fact that Deckard is a replicant and thus Roy would have less motivation to kill Deckard. In the course of the fight scene Deckard and Roy are physically parallel. This occurs in the beginning when Deckard is walking through a hallway and Roy is on the other side of the wall. Roy suddenly punches his hand through the wall. The parallelism between Deckard and Roy symbolizes the similarities between them. The direct contact caused by Roy punching through the wall foreshadows Roy’s later actions of sparing Deckard and his final speech. It is symbolic of Roy’s desire to reach Deckard and use him in order to cheat death. There is also parallelism through Roy and Deckard’s actions, especially with their hands in this scene. Roy breaks Deckard’s pinky and ring fingers. Later in the scene Roy’s hand is seizing up and he drives a nail through the middle of his hand as he says to himself, “Not yet. Not yet” (Scott). The parallelism again paints Roy and Deckard as similar beings. Both the physical parallelism and parallel actions of Roy and Deckard plays on the notion that they are analogous. This intentional parallelism can lead to the conclusion that Deckard is a replicant. If Deckard is in fact a replicant, it makes sense that Roy would not kill him out of commonality and a necessity for Deckard to be the means for Roy’s

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