Abstract:
This thesis attempts to explore the emergence of science fiction as a genre and its
development into steampunk as a subgenre of science fiction in selected science
fiction novels: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1823), Stanislaw Lem's Solaris (1970)
and K. W. Jeter's Infernal Devices (1987). This research shows that the scientists in
these novels drag themselves into darkness. Victor, the protagonists of Frankenstein,
is an ambition scientist who wants to conquer death but tragically loses his family
during this endeavour. Kelvin, the hero of Solaris, is psychologically devastated
when he struggles to understand how Solaris ocean creates a simulation of people.
The hero of the third novel, George Dewar's father, a mad scientist and inventor,
creates a double of his own son as a robot tries to destroy the earth. The main
argument of this research is that all these novels set in different eras draw on science
fiction to criticize and question man's greedy and unrestricted desire for scientific
discovery to the extent that they want to conquer the universe and play the role of
God. The study will ask the following questions: How do the ambitious scientists in
the novels drag themselves into madness? And how does the scientific desire turn
into a crave for transcendence bringing about their damnation? What do these
scientific explorations and inventions reveal about human nature? Does steampunk
bring the evolution to the future as a sub-genre of science fiction?
