Lanning and Frankenstein

Towards the end of his life, Alfred Lanning was on the verge of teaching a machine how to feel emotion. In doing so, his tendencies had begun to mirror those of Victor Frankenstein when he was in the process of creating his monster. It was evident that Lanning had been sleeping in his lab, and his coworkers had noticed that Lanning had begun to isolate himself from his fellow humans. Like Victor Frankenstein, Lanning was essentially attempting to create a companion. The fact that the robot was called “Sonnie” and that the robot referred to Lanning as his father suggests that maybe Lanning yearned for a son. Although Lanning must have been aware of the implications of teaching a robot emotion, he could not resist trying to achieve his goal. In this sense he is also similar to Frankenstein in that he was blinded by his drive to achieve and do what had never been done. In Frankenstein’s “what have I done” moment, he rejected his creation and fled from the scene. Although we are not yet sure what occurred in Lanning’s case, it appears that in Lanning’s “what have I done” moment he either angered his newly emotional robot who then killed him or was so distraught that he killed himself. However, Lanning differs from Frankenstein in that he must have seen his demise coming to create the hologram for Detective Spooner. Because Spooner is a critic of robots, he is the perfect man to get to the bottom of Alfred Lanning’s death.