Ambition is a key theme that is present in the novels Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus and The Windup Girl by their respective authors, Mary Shelley and Paolo Bacigalupi. The two novels follow a protagonist that is confronted by the benefits and disadvantages of being ambitious. Both highlight the inherent momentum and hubris of ambition and how it exists in their ambitious characters’ lives. The two authors both use their non-human characters and deuteragonists to emphasise the downfall that ambition can bring and the inescapable conflict it causes. They also use the characters of the protagonists to demonstrate the arrogance that exists due to their ambition. Both utilise the structure of their novels and the narrative points of view
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In Bacigalupi’s novel Hock Seng, the deuteragonist, is used to show the impact of the actions that Anderson Lake makes in achieving his ambitions. Hock Seng is treated poorly by Lake as just a ‘yellow card refugee’ and uses him as more of a servant than an employee, demanding he undertake supremely difficult or menial tasks that will help his cover business stay afloat so he can find his precious seedbank. Eventually Hock Seng realises that he can sell Andersons’ factory plans to make a secure life for himself and get revenge on him, however, as he goes to steal them he is betrayed watching ‘his last object of hope’ being taken away. In Frankenstein, Victor’s obsession to create a perfect being causes major conflict and puts the two at odds. As Victor recovers from the psychological trauma caused by his monster he is distraught to find that his brother William and adoptive sister Justine have been murdered by his creation. The monster stumbled across William and rejoiced for ‘{Monster] too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.’ The creator and creation continue to fight one another, Victor refuses to make his monster a companion and in turn his creation vows to make his ‘tyrant and tormentor…curse the son the gazes on [Frankenstein’s] misery.’ The deuteragonists of these two texts are used by the authors to highlight the conflict and adversaries that comes as a result of blind
In Bacigalupi’s novel Hock Seng, the deuteragonist, is used to show the impact of the actions that Anderson Lake makes in achieving his ambitions. Hock Seng is treated poorly by Lake as just a ‘yellow card refugee’ and uses him as more of a servant than an employee, demanding he undertake supremely difficult or menial tasks that will help his cover business stay afloat so he can find his precious seedbank. Eventually Hock Seng realises that he can sell Andersons’ factory plans to make a secure life for himself and get revenge on him, however, as he goes to steal them he is betrayed watching ‘his last object of hope’ being taken away. In Frankenstein, Victor’s obsession to create a perfect being causes major conflict and puts the two at odds. As Victor recovers from the psychological trauma caused by his monster he is distraught to find that his brother William and adoptive sister Justine have been murdered by his creation. The monster stumbled across William and rejoiced for ‘{Monster] too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.’ The creator and creation continue to fight one another, Victor refuses to make his monster a companion and in turn his creation vows to make his ‘tyrant and tormentor…curse the son the gazes on [Frankenstein’s] misery.’ The deuteragonists of these two texts are used by the authors to highlight the conflict and adversaries that comes as a result of blind