Week 10_Cult TV 2_LoveKim

How does Buffy deconstruct traditional literary notions of good and evil?

Rose (2002) addresses that Buffy emphasizes the values and importance of cooperation as a community to defeat devil; and the author attempts to prove it by comparing Buffy with Shelley’s Frankenstein. In traditional literary, for example, Shelley’s Frankenstein, a male Romantic hero who struggles with his oppositions (demon power) within his psyche. His characteristics represent human’s nature in modern era such as mindless, selfishness, arrogance, irresponsibility and destructiveness. These elements of human abuse technology as means of building up his/her own power only leading to tragedy. 

In Buffy, the implicit questions of Adam “who am I; what am I; why am I? reveals hopes to find the true identification of who we really are. The event of killing a boy to identify Adam himself is an example of disconnection from its creator, and the unexpected consequences as a result of mechanisation in early 21^st C. Buffy shows the hope of maintaining our humanity amidst becoming mechanised in an impersonal world where dysfunctional community exists. Buffy also claims that disconnection with our creator to accomplish technology will result in mechanistic, antisocial, and eventually chaotic consequences. Rose (2002) emphasizes the importance of working together as a community rather than solitary secret work. Buffy realises that she cannot defeat Adam on her own no matter how physically strong she is. 

“She (Buffy) understands that the most effective weapon to retain humanity and encourage creativity is the force of community.”   (Rose, 2002, p. 141).
                                                                                
Rose (2002) concludes that Buffy sends its audience vital messages about fundamental ethics of Romanticism which values community, cooperation, and openness as essence elements in 21^st C. which roots our inner world and appreciates our “true” nature, through the late18thC to mid 19^th C.
“Without the combined efforts of the full community, it is impossible to defeat demons”  (Rose, 2002, p. 142).
                                                                                
Reference
Rose, A (2002) Of creatures and creators: Buffy does Frankenstein, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds) Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.