Analyzing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein through a postmodern lens examines how the novel challenges traditional narratives and questions the stability of truth, which readers can interpret as the postmodern characteristic of fragmentation. Overall, viewing "Frankenstein" as a postmodern work enriches our understanding of the novel's themes and invites us to consider fragmentation, anti-convention, and unreliable narrator in the context of contemporary literary theory.
The creature's identity is fragmented due to his rejection by his creator because “All men hate the wretched; how then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!”Victor Frankenstein and society at large find him disgusting. Despite being created in Victor's image, “Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.” the creature is denied a sense of belonging. He is ostracized for his appearance, leading to a fractured sense of self.
Links to Postmodern Media Source
E.E Cummings, “[I Carry Your Heart With Me(I Carry It In] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/49493/i-carry-your-heart-with-mei-carry-it-in
Throughout this poem, the speaker uses a unique structure to convey the depth of his love for his partner. He utilizes the post-modernism characteristic of multiple voices, signified by including parentheses in the poem. This stylistic choice provides readers with an intimate glimpse into the speaker's thoughts, creating a sense of openness and vulnerability. The poem's non-traditional format, with irregular line breaks and unconventional punctuation, mirrors the fragmented nature of postmodern writing, further enhancing its unique appeal.
My Take—The poem and the author both express vulnerability to their emotions for others and wish to share their feelings/ experiences with those willing to listen. Both texts describe the characters as being created and dedicating their time solely to their creator/lover, which causes a fragmented and intimate look inside the speaker's mind.
The use of anti-convection is evident as Victor's initial understanding of the creature is shaped by fear and hatred as he faces the truth of what he has just created: “[A] flash of lightning illuminated the object and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature.” The sudden illumination by lightning disrupts the darkness, revealing the creature's "gigantic stature" and "deformity," which Victor perceives as "hideous" and "filthy." This is ironic because Victor's immediate reaction to the creature is based solely on its appearance, without considering its inner humanity or potential for empathy, because he only sees how he is “more hideous than belongs to humanity.”
Links to Postmodern Media Source
Gorillaz “Humility” https://genius.com/Gorillaz-humility-lyrics
The song's beginning shows a cartoon man on roller skates in a live-action video of a California beach. The combination of realism and cartoon drawing interacting with one another is not a usual combination, which exemplifies the postmodern characteristics of randomness as they dizzy the human mind trying to understand how they can be used simultaneously. As the story continues, more characters are introduced to the video, and they all seem to be doing their own thing around the beach, whether it is playing chess, skating, popping basketballs, or tripping one another. The video has no formal structure, allowing viewers to embrace the weirdness and randomness.
My Take—In both of these sources, we see scenes that express vivid pictures to further the complexity of the message of anti-convention. In the Gorillaz music video, viewers are introduced to random characters who aren’t related to one another to add to the randomness, similar to how Frankenstein is introduced as an odd creature unrelated to the rest of humanity.
The creature's narration is highly subjective, colored by its own experiences of abandonment and isolation. It considers, "All men hate the wretched; how then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!” Its perception of itself as "miserable beyond all living things" and its assumption that it is universally hated reflect its internalized sense of worthlessness and despair. This subjectivity introduces a degree of bias into the creature's narrative as it interprets events through the lens of its suffering even though “[his] creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the destruction of one of us.”
Links to Postmodern Media Source
Ry Book Suraski, “Decortication of an Airplane”
https://pankmagazine.com/piece/decortication-of-an-airplane/
The author begins his story with a girl getting a massage who seems to be struggling internally and would rather suffer silently at the hands of the masseuses instead of speaking out. However, in the perspective of the masseuse, she feels troubled because she doesn’t want to cause the girl pain, which is a completely different perspective from the other girl. The author depicts this girl ONLY using negative language to express her pain and self-image, which is an example of an unreliable narrator as she is unintentionally misguided about the truth of her body and soul. The girl does not know how to express herself in an unbiased manner.
My Take - In these two texts, both characters have a negative perspective on their life and society around them. They seem to believe that they do not matter in society and have internalized hatred for their physical attributes. As a reader, we can connect this to the post-moderism characteristic of unreilabel narrator as they don not have a clear idea about society around them as their brain is foggy due to their own emotions.
The writing style involves fragmentation, anti-convention of randomness, and an unreliable narrator, highlighting the postmodern characteristics of Frankenstein. Through these examples, readers can better understand how these qualities further the complexity of the message sent out by the creators.
