Postcolonial Gothic and the Politics of Justice: A Study in Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad

Abstract

The central goal of this paper is to scrutinize the systemic failings of the contemporary

moment of Iraqi government aftermath. The study comes as a critique of the colonial moment of injustice using the resurrection of Frankenstein which appears as a moment of resistance and failure. The study, furthermore, reveals how the cruelty of war is shown as a dehumanizing force in Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad with continuous violence that refreshes itself by generating more violence and how that everyday harsh stories are mostly shaped by the state of disorder under and after the occupation. It, also, shows the extent to which the monster is the representation of reality of Iraqi conditions after the 2003 US occupation. One of the conclusions the researcher has arrived at is that under the US occupation people, instead of welfare, left without a will to decide their fate. They cannot declare their position against the Americans and the state of armed terrorism, and they cannot at the same time support acts of murder and terrorism.