By: Travy Patty - 5th
Looking at literature through a postmodern lens is like putting on a pair of glasses that make everything a little weird and confusing. Instead of looking for one clear message, postmodernism tells us that stories can be messy, strange, and totally up for interpretation. Instead of finding one answer, it’s more about asking, “What even is going on here?” By looking at Frankenstein through a postmodern lens, it completely flips the story upside down. Instead of just being a shallow story about a scientist creating a story, it makes us question everything about the story, like what’s truly good or bad, or whether the monster really is the bad guy, or just simply misunderstood. Postmodernism makes us look at it as not a story about a monster terrorizing people, but a moral dilemma that makes us think about what it truly means to be a human and how complicated life can be.
Much like Frankenstein, Greaves’s story about reopening Jurassic Park is full of postmodern ideas like anti-conventionalism and black humor. In Frankenstein, Victor decides to create life, even though it’s obviously a terrible idea, and somehow thinks it’ll turn out great—spoiler: it doesn’t. In Greaves’s story, reopening a dinosaur-filled theme park is treated as a smart move to make money, even though it’s basically asking for disaster. Both stories use humor to
show how ridiculous these decisions are, while also making us realize that, unfortunately, we’ve seen similar crazy ideas in real life. The characters in both stories do outrageously dumb things without thinking through the consequences, which is exactly what postmodernism is all about—taking something that seems normal and showing how totally absurd it really is.
When you compare Frankenstein and Naomi Shihab Nye’s Making a Fist, you’ll notice both use postmodern elements, like mixing reality with weird, almost surreal emotions, and getting a little too real with self-reflection. In Frankenstein, Victor’s obsession with creating life ends in disaster (shocker, trying to play God never works out). Nye’s poem, on the other hand, uses bizarre yet powerful imagery like “my stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin” to show how she feels, making her emotional struggles sound both real and totally weird at the same time. Both stories dive into the messiness of being human—Frankenstein shows the chaos that comes with trying to control everything, while Nye’s poem reminds us that just being alive is kind of a big deal. By focusing on small things, like making a fist, both stories teach us that even the tiniest actions can actually be pretty deep—or at least make you stop and think, “Wait, what did I just read?”
Comparing Frankenstein to Humility by Gorillaz, you get the perfect clash of old school and new school styles that somehow go hand in hand. Humility, for example, is all over the place when you've got these smooth '70s guitar riffs that feel like they belong in a retro disco, but then out of nowhere, futuristic electronic beats jump in and throw you straight into 2025. It’s like a throwback party with a twist. Frankenstein does something similar by mixing old-school ideas, like the ancient myth of creating life, with new science and tech—basically, Victor Frankenstein is like, "Let's take a classic horror story and make it way more complicated." Both the song and the book also play around with
maximalism, where they throw everything at you and somehow make it work. "Humility" layers all kinds of sounds—guitar, beats, synths—and Frankenstein is full of huge themes like ambition, isolation, and consequences. It's like both works are saying, "Why stick to one thing when you can just throw in everything?" And somehow, it all fits together, even if it's a little weird.
Looking at Frankenstein through a postmodern lens helps us build more off of the story, and come to realize that it isn’t just a story about a man and a monster. Looking through this lens creates depth and helps the reader see it and see similarities to other stories and in real life, so they get more out of it than just a scary story. Comparing it to the story of reopening Jurassic Park shows how both people make bad decisions and are surprised (for some reason) when disaster strikes. The connections between Making A Fist show the true value of life and being able to understand the little details that truly make life special. Lastly, comparing it to Gorillaz's song Humility shows how old and new styles were mashed together, but still came out okay in the end. Postmodernism takes stories and distorts them so that they can be viewed in ways that are below the surface level and that are weird. It helps give a deeper understanding, and helps us see things that wouldn’t stand out before.
Works Cited
Gorillaz. “Humility.” The Now Now, featuring George Benson, Parlophone, 2018. YouTube, Accessed 14 May 2025 www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5yFcdPAGv0.
Greaves, Carlos, "Sure, the Velociraptors Are Still on the Loose, but That's No Reason NOT to Reopen Jurassic Park." The Onion, 26 Apr. 2021, Accessed 14 May 2025 www.theonion.com/sure-the-velociraptors-are-still-on-the-loose-but-that-1846783880.
Nye, Naomi Shihab. “Making a Fist.” Poetry Foundation, 2025, Accessed 14 May 2025 www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54308/making-a-fist.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Edited by J. Paul Hunter, 2nd ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Accessed 14 May 2025
Your take on Frankenstein as a postmodern mess of moral chaos and misunderstood monsters is not only sharp but also wildly entertaining. The Jurassic Park comparison was genius: both Victor and the park execs looked at wildly unethical science experiments and said, “This can’t possibly go wrong,” which is postmodern irony. Also, loved the Gorillaz comparison—Frankenstein really is maximalist energy: gothic horror, tragic philosophy, sci-fi ambition, and some serious “please go to therapy” undertones. And your point about Nye’s “Making a Fist” showing that the smallest human actions carry huge meaning? Chef’s kiss. Who knew making a fist could rival resurrecting the dead? Basically, you Frankenstein-ed your references together and brought this analysis to life. HAHA GET IT????😜😜
I like how this article Travis wrote reimagines Frankenstein through a postmodern perspective and it really brings the story to life in a whole new way. It’s not just about a mad scientist and his creation anymore, but a deeper exploration of human nature, the fallout of unchecked ambition, and the messiness of life itself. The comparisons to Jurassic Park, Naomi Shihab Nye’s Making a Fist, and Gorillaz’s Humility are spot-on. They show how postmodernism flips expectations on their head, mixing the absurd with the real and making us reflect on everything from our personal decisions to bigger societal issues. It’s a really fun and thoughtful read that reminds me that stories, whether old or new, always have layers if you dig a little deeper.
This was fun to read and made postmodernism a lot easier to understand. I liked how you showed that Frankenstein and all the other stories, like Jurassic Park and the Gorillaz song, aren’t just random or simple—they actually make you think when you look at them in a deeper, kind of weird way. You explained how postmodernism flips things around and makes us question what’s good or bad, and how the characters in these stories make silly choices that end in disaster, which feels pretty real.
I enjoyed the way travy wavy explained how all 3 sources come together and explain how they relate to the main literary source, Frankenstein. My favorite example in this blog post is the connection to the Jurassic Park story and the black humor behind the story and how the re-opening of the park defines that. My favorite GIF/meme was the "stand out I see you" GIF because it kind of sums up post-modernism and how wacky and crazy it can be.