Hidden symbolisms in Blade Runner 2049 [spoilers]

The 2049 layers in huge amounts of symbolism and imagery, a lot of which I don't think has been fully picked up on. I've written a longer piece about some of what I think's in there, but I'll try to condense it here into just the stuff that's particularly relevant to interpreting some of the enigmatic undercurrents behind the plot.

Nabokov & Kafka

The allusion's to Nabokov's "Pale Fire" in the baseline test, and Kafka's character Josef K as the name Joe/K in "The Trial" have both been highlighted by lots of reviewers.

One thing that I've not seen mentioned is the relevance of the two works to each other - Nabokov is deeply influenced by Kafka in his work and deliberately mirrors his work in several ways.

That interlinking comes into the film in other ways. Nabokov interpret's Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" as having been into a Beetle, which is significant to him as having wings hidden under it's casing. A hidden & unknown transcendental ability of flight.

"Gregor the beetle never found out that he had wings under the hard covering of his back. (This is a very nice observation on my part to be treasured all your lives. Some Gregors, some Joes and Janes, do not know that they have wings.)"

The beetle motif is hidden in the film in a couple of places, most clearly in the scene where Ana and K meet, as she concentrates on an irredescant green beetle in the forest.

She creates one other memory during that scene, of the birthday cake, with a deep darkness as the candles are blown out. That has an opaque foreshadowing of K's death through it's resonance with The Trial, which starts on Josef K's 30th birthday, and ends when he is killed on his 31st birthday. (2049 also being set 30 years after the original)

The date on the horse comes in here too; 06–10–21. Read that American style and we have 10th June, Gemini, sign of the twins. Conversely read it mirrored into European style, and we have 6th October. Break the fourth wall and that's the release date of the film, representing K's birthday.

The DNA in the birth records indicated identical twins, which means that a girl and boy shouldn't normally be possible. However in some miraculously rare circumstances, it can occur. For this to happen one of two male twins drops an X chromosome during development, and becomes developmentally female.

The girl child in these (exceedingly rare) circumstances would present Turner Syndrome, which include a pre-disposition to auto-immune disorders, which Stelline describes.

Greek & Roman pantheons

The title "Pale Fire" comes from a line of Shakespeare...

"The moon's an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun."

Ana Stelline's name echos here, as Selene, the Greek Goddess of the moon. (Mirrored in her brother Helios, God of the Sun.)

Interstingly, bringing back the theme of twins, the historical figures Cleopatra and Mark Anthony had twin children that they named Selene and Helios.

In classical times Selene and Helios later find themselves becoming associated with the Roman Gods, the twins of Diana and Apollo. (Again, associated with the Moon and Sun respectively.)

That reflection and re-reflection is found again in the character's name: Ana, Stelline / Diana, Selene.

The scriptwriters have then further transformed the names in such a way that each also has (at least) a double meaning. Ana (Hebrew for grace) and Stella, for star.

Scripture

A few of the characters have names with significant Hebrew translations. Rachel is "Ewe" a female sheep, which we find in "Do Androids dream of electric sheep" and in Gaff's origami sheep.

Rachel is also found in the Hebrew bible. She has two children and dies in childbirth. She was buried by a sacred olive tree at the side of the road. (That sounds familiar.)

Rachel's tomb is now a holy site. Older illustations of the tomb seem remarkably similar to the scene of the tree standing outside Sapper Morton's house.

Rachel had two children Benjamin and Joeseph. Benjamin later had a daughter Esther. (A Persian name, meaning Star. Stella. Stelline.)

Deckard's opening lines from treasure island are spoken by a character Ben. The allusion is a little imperfect, but we have each of Rachel, Ben, Joe and Esther (Stelline) in the family.

Sylvia Plath

Just as K has a hidden association with Kafka's works, I think that Stelline has a hidden association with Sylvia Plath's.

In the casino a holographic Sinatra is singing inside a bell jar jukebox. The image evokes Stelline in her own glass prison, as well as the emotional tone of Plath's novel "The Bell Jar". The lead character of the novel is named Esther. (There's that name again.)

There are other links too, Stelline's "I was locked in a steel chamber at 8" resonates with Plath's inner life, as her father died at 8, and matches the way she talks about those years as "sealed themselves off like a ship in a bottle".

The bee imagery found in the film is also linked in, being deeply symbolic to Plath, being linked to her personal life and her father, and appearing throughout her poetry.

Transcendence & Rebirth

The name Esther (as Stelline) is found again in Pale Fire. Nabokov used the phrase "A dark Vanessa" as the image of a butterfly, a figure that represents transcendal rebirth, while also layering in literary allusions to Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels) who created the name "Vanessa" as a pet name for his love Esther Vanhomrigh. The name was created by taking "Van" from Vanhomrigh's last name and adding "Essa", a pet form of Esther.

(We possibly see allusion to Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" in 2049 too, the gigantic towering versions of Joi, and Luv's line, "You tiny thing".)

The subject of the Pale Fire poem being the fictional author's dead daughter with the butterfly as Esther, and the holographic resonance of Esther in the Bell Jar, could both point towards an interpretation that, as the birth records indicated, Ana and Joe were twins, and Ana really did die, but was saved by being given a holographic afterlife, and hidden in plain sight.

We never see the character touch the glass in response to either K or Deckard, and the very particular choice of phrases she uses are interesting.

The image of the snowflakes falling through her hand in the final scenes can be viewed either as a hand moving through holographic snowflakes, or else as snowflakes falling through a holographic hand, depending on what expected perspective you're looking at it from.

In her words "It was a new life for me".

The interpretation has resonances with Philip K Dick's personal life too.

Philip Kindred Dick and Jane Charlotte Dick were born as premature twins. Jane lived to only six weeks old.

Philip purchased the plot next to hers before his death in 1982, and they now share a twin gravestone.

(I'd also wonder if Stelline's final words "It's beautiful isn't it?" could be read as being a scene of her speaking not neccessarily to Deckard, but to K, in his moment of death.)

As I mention, I've written a longer piece about all this, including various other bits of related mythology and hidden symbolisms that I think are also linked in.

Submitted November 02, 2017 at 08:53PM by tomchristie http://ift.tt/2z83vM2