On: Angels and Insects

What I found most interesting about Angels and Insects (Philip Haas, 1995) was the patriarch of the Alabaster family and the role he played in the film. The father is responsible for the bringing William Adamson into the house after the shipwreck and subsequent loss of all of his research. Sir Alabaster financed all of Adamson’s work and provides him with new opportunities upon Adamson’s return to England. Alabaster even allows William, who is of a working class background, to marry his daughter and enter into the wealthy family and a new life of privilege.

Sir Alabaster is so interesting because he sees such value in science and encourages William’s research at a time when scientific methods were a source of heated controversy among a devoutly religious society. Alabaster himself is a very religious man, and he expresses the conflict he feels between his religion and the science of evolution. However, Alabaster knows that scientific advancement is valuable to society for what knowledge it provides about our living Earth, rather than speculating about angels and demons battling over good and evil somewhere off in the ether. Sir Alabaster’s own inner conflict mirrors the conflict William experiences living life on the Alabaster estate.

William feels he owes a debt to Sir Alabaster for the many opportunities that he has provided, and he knows that he is an outsider among the wealthy Alabaster clan. William tutors the children and conducts research around the estate while he helps Sir Alabaster organize his own materials. But Alabaster’s own children seem to have little interest in the sciences and are only concerned with the pleasures provided by a life of privilege. William cannot relate to the lives of the wealthy aristocrats and is abhorred by the secrets he finds out about the family. William feels trapped in a life he doesn’t understand, much in the same way that Alabaster feels caught between his religion and science. There is no way that either could truly reconcile the two sides to find a middle ground.