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Only Monsters Evolve From Wars: An Analogical Reading of Slaughterhouse-Five and Frankenstein in Baghdad
Abstract
This article examines the absurdity of wars and grounds their intersecting contours of enormous death (physical and psychological), destruction, and trauma notwithstanding their location, grounds, pretext, or repercussions. It underlines the scathing critiques of their constituencies in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013, trans. 2018), two novels articulating a striking disdain for the ethics and myths of the so-called “just wars.” The researchers, sharing the novelists’ moral qualms about wars, bring these two novels together in a potent critique uncovering the cruelties of wars, which have led to the dislodgement and demise of millions of people all over the world, not to mention the psychological insecurities and anxieties instigated by war. To illustrate, the horrible car bomb explosions besetting Baghdad in the aftermath of the 2003-American invasion of Iraq are equated with the Allies’ firebombing and leveling of Dresden in Eastern Germany. Hence, Dresden and Baghdad lapse into waves of horror and massacres committed in the name of justice, and Vonnegut and Saadawi, whose awfully poignant firsthand war experiences enticed them to foreground the tragedies of war, interweave nonlinear antiwar narratives reminiscent of the mismatched body of Whatsitsname in Frankenstein in Baghdad and Billy Pilgrim’s disheveled appearance and lack of training as a soldier in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.
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Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad, originally published in Arabic in 2013 and translated into English by Jonathan Wright in 2018, is set in the chaotic socio-political condition of post-invasion Iraq. The Nobel exacerbates the horror of sectarian violence by introducing a Frankensteinesque atmosphere of magical realism. However, this paper concentrates on the concept of monstrosity as presented in the novel. The paper shows how the concept of monstrosity, being a fluid one, problematizes the notion of identity. By carefully considering the multiple manifestations of 'monstrous identity', the paper demonstrates that 'monstrosity' is not an easily identifiable physical attribute found in conventional deformed-body 'monsters'; nor is it just a characteristic trait of an evil mind; rather, it is a highly nuanced term which complexly affects social identities.
This paper analyzes Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (2018) with a special emphasis on the grotesque bodily images of the monster, the novel’s exploration of justice, and the question of violence. I draw on the theoretical framework of the Russian philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975), the ethics philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995), and the German-American philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt (1906–1975). Saadawi’s unnamed monster, “The Whatsitsname,” comes into being via an accidental if honorably intentioned act, when the main character, Hadi, compiles remnant corpses that he finds in the streets of Bagdad into one body with the aim of conducting “a proper burial” in order to dignify the dead. Interestingly, while the monster is the enemy in the eyes of the Iraqi government, he is a savior for the ordinary people— their only hope of putting an end to the violence and achieving justice. In this paper, I argue that Saadawi draws on the metaphor of Frankenstein’s monster not only to capture the dystopian mood in post-2003 Baghdad, but also to question the tragic realities, and the consequence of war, as well as the overall ramification of colonialism. In addition, Saadawi’s embodiment of the metaphor of Frankenstein’s monster actualizes a new literary role for Frankenstein in literature—the representation of the Other: In this instance, the entire Iraqi community is literary represented in Frankenstein’s body. Of equal importance, is the fragmented nature of his body, which is literally compiled of different body parts from different people, perhaps symbolizing the urgent need for unity in Iraq.
With a career spanning 50 years, Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most prolific and popular American writers of the 20th century. Though his works have often met with mixed reviews, and have been difficult to categorize, his status of cultural icon and one of the most important contemporary novelists is well established. This critical companion, perfect for students, skillfully guides readers through seven of Vonnegut's most important novels includingPlayer Piano(1952),Mother Night(1961),Cat's Cradle(1963), andSlaughterhouse Five(1969). A full chapter is devoted to each work, with clear analysis of plot, character development, thematic concerns, symbolism, and a close critical reading. A chapter on the life of Kurt Vonnegut gives an up-to-date biography, with interesting details relating the facts of his life to his writings. The Literary Contexts section, devoted to examining issues of genre, influences and themes in Vonnegut's writing, adds to a fuller understanding of the man and his literary works.
This exceptionally well-written Critical Companion will help students and interested readers appreciate Vonnegut's most important and popular novels. Close critical readings offer feminist, Marxist, and new historicist perspectives on these works. A bibliography helps students undertaking research identify additional sources for biographical and critical information, and provides reviews and a comprehensive list of Vonnegut's publications to date.
An ever-expanding critical library on fantasy fiction requires an analysis of why the genre is so ubiquitous, enduring and beloved. This work analyzes the mythic elements in foundational fantasy texts, arguing that mythopoeic fantasy reveals timeless truths that link human cultures past and present. Through close readings of works like Phantastes, The King of Elfland’s Daughter, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Neverending Story, A Wrinkle in Time and Out of the Silent Planet, this book explores how mythopoeic fantasy speaks to the deepest concerns of the human heart. It investigates the genre’s use of an imagination that is sometimes atrophied by the demands of contemporary life, and explores how fantasy provides restoration, consolation and hope within a cultural context that too often decries such ideas.
Each chapter focuses on a representative text, providing author background and engaging relevant scholarship on a variety of relevant thematic issues. Offering new insights on these classic texts by drawing upon post-secular critical approaches, this work is suitable for both new and seasoned students of fantasy.
The Celebration of Death in Contemporary Culture investigates the emergence and meaning of the cult of death. Over the last three decades, Halloween has grown to rival Christmas in its popularity. Dark tourism has emerged as a rapidly expanding industry. “Corpse chic” and “skull style” have entered mainstream fashion, while elements of gothic, horror, torture porn, and slasher movies have streamed into more conventional genres. Monsters have become pop culture heroes: vampires, zombies, and serial killers now appeal broadly to audiences of all ages. This book breaks new ground by viewing these phenomena as aspects of a single movement and documenting its development in contemporary Western culture. This book links the mounting demand for images of violent death with dramatic changes in death-related social rituals. It offers a conceptual framework that connects observations of fictional worlds-including The Twilight Saga, The Vampire Diaries, and the Harry Potter series-with real-world sociocultural practices, analyzing the aesthetic, intellectual, and historical underpinnings of the cult of death. It also places the celebration of death in the context of a longstanding critique of humanism and investigates the role played by 20th-century French theory, posthumanism, transhumanism, and the animal rights movement in shaping the current antihumanist atmosphere. This timely, thought-provoking book will appeal to scholars of culture, film, literature, anthropology, and American and Russian studies, as well as general readers seeking to understand a defining phenomenon of our age.
This article is an intervention into studies of the legacy and longevity of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein through an analysis of one of its most recent reinterpretations, Ahmad Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad (2018). In this article, I examine Fra4enstein in Baghdad through the lens of biopolitical theorization by Judith Butler and Isabell Lorey, focusing on the novel's depiction of forms of unliveable life and living death engendered by large-scale violent conflict in twenty-first century Iraq. I argue that by using Shelley's original creature and its various iterations as intertexts, Saadawi's Whatsitsname allegorizes a collective feeling that "every day we're dying from the same fear of dying" in Iraq under conditions of governance through precarization, offering a dystopian pronouncement on the unequal distribution of vulnerability within a post-war environment of sociopolitical instability.
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