Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Frankenstein in Baghdad, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Truth, Lies, and Storytelling
Good vs. Evil
Power, Authority, and Social Divisions
Family, Friendship, and Home
Superstition and Religion
Summary
Analysis
Barely two minutes after an old woman named Elishva boards the bus to go to church, an explosion takes place 200 yards away in Tayaran Square, in the center of Baghdad. Chaos erupts, as everyone nearby succumbs to shock and terror. However, Elishva does not seem to have heard anything. She does not react. She has left her neighborhood, the Bataween district, to go to the Church of Saint Odisho, as she does every Sunday. Some of Elishva’s neighbors believe that the explosion was caused by the old lady’s departure. They believe that the old woman has spiritual powers and can prevent bad events from taking place when she is in her own neighborhood.
These events introduce many themes that will recur throughout the novel: the frequency of terrorist attacks and the role superstition plays in people’s lives. People’s belief in Elishva’s special powers does not entirely square with reality: if Elishva’s presence were absolutely necessary to maintain peace and security in Bataween, the neighborhood would erupt into violence every time the old lady leaves—that is, every single Sunday. These people’s belief in Elishva’s powers is therefore based on selective information, namely the few moments in which it actually is possible to establish a correlation between the old lady’s departure and a violent event. This perspective tends to overlook the large number of days in which, on the contrary, Elishva left the neighborhood but no violent events took place.
Themes
Elishva, in the meantime, is lost in her own thoughts. Since the American invasion of Baghdad, her daughters Hilda and Matilda, who live in Melbourne, have called her every week at church. Father Josiah receives their call on his cell phone. During periods of violence, in which landlines were destroyed, he also used to receive calls from his congregation’s family members. More broadly, he also accepted calls from the relatives of people in the neighborhood, who did not have any other means to keep in touch with their families abroad. Even since cell phones have become more popular and accessible, however, Elishva has continued to rely on Father Josiah for this service. As soon as she hears her daughters speak, she feels relieved.
Elishva’s reliance on Father Josiah to receive calls from her daughters suggests that the Church is not only a place of worship but also, importantly, a safe haven in times of extreme violence. This particular church’s role in helping the entire neighborhood—regardless of whether or not people are affiliated with this particular religion—shows that some networks of solidarity in Baghdad extend beyond religious identity. This highlights Father Josiah’s generosity and kindheartedness, as well as the possibility—in stark contrast with the sectarian violence rocking the country—that people of all religions can live together peacefully and to help each other in times of need.
Themes
On the bus, Elishva reflects that she does not truly need to hear her daughters’ voice. Instead, what she appreciates is being able to talk with someone about her son Daniel. Everyone around her, including her fellow church-goers, have grown tired of hearing her repeat the same story. For many people, Daniel is just one of the many casualties that Iraq has known in recent history. Elishva, however, is convinced that her son is still alive. Her family, she recalls, only buried an empty coffin. However, she no longer shares this belief with the skeptical people around her. For this reason, she values her calls with her daughters Hilda and Matilda, who understand that this belief plays an important role in giving Elishva the will to live.
Incapable of accepting the trauma of her son’s death, Elishva retreats into a world of imagination and wishful thinking to cope with this difficult reality. She prefers to believe that her son is not dead and will one day return to her. Her story suggests that enduring the disappearance of a loved one—specifically, not having a physical body to bury—can be even more difficult to bear than physical proof of that person’s death. In this sense, her story anticipates many important themes in the novel: in particular, the dehumanization that terrorist attacks can provoke, as they turn human bodies into a heterogeneous set of separate body parts.
Themes
By the time the deacon, Nader Shamouni, drives Elishva back home to her house on Lane 7 in Bataween, the streets around Tayaran Square are quiet and have been cleaned. But signs of the day’s violence are still present—blood and hair, for example, can be seen on an electricity pole. When he notices this, Nader feels fear running through his body. Elishva, however, does not notice anything. She is already anticipating opening the door to her house and seeing her cat, Nabu. She also plans to get angry at Saint George, who promised her good news the night before.
The quiet and cleanliness of the streets near that morning’s explosion highlights the relatively ordinary nature of such events in the city: however violent and traumatic these explosions may be, life must go on as usual afterwards. However, Nader’s shiver of fear at seeing human remains shows that the locals never actually get used to the violence: they simply try to live with it as best they can. By contrast, Elishva’s lack of awareness of her surroundings suggests that she is living more in the past—and in a superstition-filled future—than in the present.
Themes
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Although many people believe that Elishva is simply an old lady who suffers from dementia and memory loss, her neighbor Umm Salim trusts that this woman has spiritual powers and is divinely protected. She believes that neighbors with such powers are responsible for keeping the neighborhood free from violence for so long. At the same time, even Umm Salim later becomes confused when Elishva begins to recount strange stories that are difficult to believe. The other neighbors laugh on such occasions, saying that Elishva’s descent into madness forges a path that everyone in the neighborhood is bound to follow.
People’s disagreement about Elishva’s mental state reveals two contrasting attitudes toward the future. Umm Salim wants to believe in stability: she wants to trust that concrete circumstances—such as Elishva’s presence in the neighborhood—promote security. By contrast, others accept that, given how widespread violence is in the city, its insecurity and the emotional toll it provokes—such as madness—is bound to affect them. Both interpretations reveal the fragility of peace and the local population’s dread of violent chaos.
Themes
Two people in the neighborhood are particularly convinced that Elishva is a madwoman: Faraj the realtor and Hadi the junk dealer. For the past few years, Faraj has wanted to buy Elishva’s seven-room house, which he considers too big for her and her cat to live alone. He does not understand why the old woman does not prefer to sell it and spend her last years living comfortably. And Elishva’s neighbor Hadi, an unkempt, unpleasant man who always smells of alcohol, wants to buy Elishva’s furniture, but she refuses to sell it.
Faraj’s attitude toward Elishva reveals his calculating behavior: he is less interested in an old lady’s well-being and survival than in the profit he could make off of her. At the same time, his confusion at Elishva’s decision to stay in her home mirrors the fact that, while most people are concerned with pragmatic details of everyday life, Elishva is more focused on the past than the present: she refuses to leave her home because it is a special place associated with her son.
Themes
Elishva hates both Faraj and Hadi, whom she considers greedy and immoral. She curses them, along with Abu Zaidoun, the Baathist barber responsible for forcing her son, Daniel, to enroll in the army. Abu Zaidoun, however, no longer spends much time in the neighborhood, now that he has left the Baath Party and suffers from medical problems.
Abu Zaidoun’s affiliation with the Baath Party reveals that he actively supported Saddam Hussein’s regime before it fell as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. His life story reflects a larger dilemma that appears throughout the novel: how should people be judged—and, perhaps, punished—for crimes committed in the past?
Themes
After the explosion in Tayaran Square, Faraj notices that there are cracks in the front window of his realty office. On the other side of the street, Abu Anmar, who owns the Orouba Hotel in front of Faraj’s office, grows desperate as he notices that the upper windows of his hotel are shattered. The two men are rivals. Since April 2003, most of Abu Anmar’s clients, migrant workers from Egypt and Sudan, have left. During this period, Faraj came to the neighborhood, taking advantage of the tumult in the city to appropriate abandoned houses with no known owners. He then rented rooms to displaced people fleeing sectarian violence and the various violent conflicts that emerged after the regime fell.
This episode highlights the economic effects of terrorist attacks and insecurity: not only does violence affect victims physically, but it also ravages the local economy. In this context, the contrast between Faraj’s wealth and Abu Anmar’s financial decline reveals a fundamental difference between the two men’s behaviors. Although Abu Anmar is helpless before so much chaos, Faraj actually benefits from violence: he takes advantage of fear and chaos to expand his business, regardless of the moral and legal implications of his actions.
Themes
Abu Anmar, who came to the neighborhood from southern Iraq over two decades years ago, has no family or friends to support him. His business has therefore depended on the stability of the regime. Faraj, by contrast, has many contacts in Baghdad. This allowed him to find allies when he began appropriating abandoned housing, without the adequate legal papers to justify his acts. One of Faraj’s goals is to appropriate Elishva’s house, which he finds beautiful. However, he knows that evicting an old woman by force might cause him trouble in the neighborhood, and he decides to wait until she dies to take over the property.
Abu Anmar and Faraj’s financial situations depend in part on their contact networks. Given that the fall of Saddam Hussein’s has caused profound instability in Iraqi society, people have been forced to rely on other forms of stability, such as personal relationships. This, in turn, creates unofficial power circles: instead of depending on the rule of law, people depend on territorial and social domination—or, in Elishva’s case, on a certain degree of neighborly protection. On a larger scale, these dynamics mirror the sectarian violence in the city, as each political or religious group aims to extend its territorial reach through brute force.
Themes
In her home, Elishva sits on her sofa in front of a large picture of Saint George the Martyr, as she does every evening. The saint is shown in armor, on a horse, fighting off a vicious dragon. Elishva examines the picture closely and notes that no emotion is visible on the saint’s face. Rather, the saint acts with the tranquility of knowing that he is honoring his God. Elishva treats this saint like a family member, along with her cat Nabu and the memory of her son, Daniel. These three “ghosts” keep her from feeling lonely.
The image of Saint George the Martyr plays an important role in Elishva’s life. Through the saint’s symbolic fight against the dragon, it highlights the hope of vanquishing evil forces: like Saint George fighting off the dragon, Elishva hopes to fight off death and destruction and to be reunited with her son. The saint’s calm attitude suggests, for Elishva, that she, too, should place her faith in God, trusting that he will find a way to improve her current circumstances.
Themes
That night, Elishva is angry because she has spent many nights desperately pleading with Saint George to bring her a sign about Daniel. At night, she is able to have conversations with the saint. That night, the saint tells her that she should be patient and accept that God always fulfills his promises, but that one can’t know when exactly this will happen. After half an hour of discussion, the saint’s face, which had become animated, returns to its tranquil state, signaling the end of this conversation. The next day, while American helicopters are flying in the sky, Elishva sees Daniel in her house and understands that the prophecy was correct. She calls her son, telling him to come to her.
In addition to the picture’s symbolic significance, Saint George is also significant because it has a true, personal presence in Elishva’s life. This highlights the old lady’s isolation: it seems that she needs to dialogue with a supernatural being in order to feel less alone in Baghdad. At the same time, it also underlines the power of faith and of the imagination: regardless of the fact that Elishva’s relationship with the saint is based on superstition, her trust in his powers allows her to endure a difficult past and present reality. It encourages her to interpret even terrifying events—such as the irruption of a mysterious man in her home—in a positive light, because she is so convinced that the saint has indeed pledged to bring her son back.
Themes
