The Theme of Revenge in Saadawi's Frankenstein In Baghdad: A Postcolonial Reading Through Said's Perspective

Аннотация

This paper explores the theme of revenge in Ahmed Saadawi’s novel Frankenstein in Baghdad and its implications from a postcolonial perspective. Saadawi’s narrative tackles the consequences of revenge within a colonized society struggling with identity reconstruction. Revenge is not portrayed as a liberating and just act but rather as a vicious and futile cycle that only produces more oppression, darkness, and loss. Saadawi intertwines the notions of colonizer, colonized, oppression, and revenge to highlight how the oppressed can become oppressors in turn, and thus the cycle continues. Ultimately, Saadawi seems to warn against revenge in a postcolonial context, on both individual and national levels, as it only reproduces the colonial trauma. Frankenstein in Baghdad is situated within a discourse on trauma and (national) identity, and thus its postcoloniality extends also to notions of identity. In a contemporary landscape troubled by questions of identity and agency, Frankenstein in Baghdad is a highly relevant and necessary text. Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad presents a narrative in which construction becomes creation, and creation becomes a monster. Hadi, the protagonist, stitches together dead body parts collected from the streets of post-war Baghdad, hoping to give the victims a kind of life after death. Instead, this new creature, dubbed Whatsitsname, takes vengeance on those responsible for his parts’ deaths, leading the narrative into a horror story. On a closer reading, Whatsitsname’s quest for revenge intertwines with the other characters’ narratives, who also become monsters after seeking vengeance. The narrative expresses a concern with the consequences of revenge but knows a complexity of the necessity of revenge. Keywords: Revenge, Frankenstein in Baghdad, A Postcolonial, Saadawi. Mahmood 25). Introduction: Ahmed Saadawi's "Frankenstein in Baghdad," set against the backdrop of post-2003 Iraq, The creature's insatiable desire for revenge takes provides a poignant critique of the consequences of center stage in Saadawi's novel, transforming it from an American occupation and sectarian conflict that innocent being, as in Shelley's tale, into a relentless followed the U.S. invasion. The novel's central pursuer of vengeance. While Shelley's creature, character, Hadi al-Aasak, a scavenger and storyteller, wronged by its creator Victor Frankenstein, embarks on becomes the creator of a creature assembled from the a quest for revenge against him, Saadawi's creature body parts of various bombing victims after the 2005 seeks retribution against its killers and all those who sectarian violence in Baghdad. This creature, initially spread terror and death in Baghdad. This examination intended as a means to peace, ultimately seeks revenge delves into the representation of revenge through against those responsible for the deaths of its parts. Saadawi's creature—a reflection of the consequences Through this narrative, Saadawi deftly weaves themes of U.S. colonization and a critique of violence giving rise of revenge and the consequences of U.S. colonization to further violence—through a postcolonial lens in Iraq, echoing Mary Shelley's concerns in her original informed by (Abu Shehab 16). text (for Translation & Literary Studies & Aziz Background of the Novel International Journal Of Literature And Languages 50 https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ijll International Journal Of Literature And Languages (ISSN: 2771-2834) "Frankenstein in Baghdad" is the second novel by the them together. This creature, like the colonial figures in Iraqi novelist Ahmed Saadawi, originally written in these classic texts, seeks revenge against his maker and Arabic in 2013 and later translated into English. The violently kills anyone who had a hand in his previous life novel is set in Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion and as a part of the colonized’s quest for vengeance against combines elements of horror and dark comedy. It tells the colonial settlers. Saadawi’s appropriation of the story of Hadi al-Attag, a disabled scavenger who Shelley’s Frankenstein tale situates monstrous gathers body parts of bomb victims and has them postcoloniality in the context of 21st century U.S. stitched together by a madman named Wafaa al- invasion of Iraq with the emergence of a patchwork Ninawi. When the creature comes to life, chaos ensues monster as a means to explore the colonial in post-invasion Baghdad as it seeks revenge on those unfinishedness of Saadawi’s Baghdad. The textual who perpetrated violence. The novel touches on issues representations of the patchwork monster in the of colonialism, nationalism, violence, and identity in aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as depicted in contemporary Iraq, ultimately presenting a critique of Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad, interrogates the the U.S. invasion and a defense of Iraqi identity (Abu historical violence's of colonial beheading, ruptured Shehab 22 ). In the novel, the charac