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
Hasib Mohamed Jaafar, the guard at the Sadeer Novotel Hotel, was 21 years old when he was killed by a Sudanese suicide bomber operating a stolen garbage truck. Hasib kept the man from detonating the explosives inside the lobby by firing at the truck as soon as he understood the drivers’ intentions. There were only a few of Hasid’s belongings and small, burned body parts for Hasib’s family—which included his wife and their baby daughter—to put in his coffin. Hasib’s entire family cried in despair on the day of the funeral. That night, they all dreamed of Hasib. The separate dreams recomposed Hasib’s life and body, thus compensating for his lost body parts. Hasib’s soul, meanwhile, floated over them in unrest.
Hasib’s family’s dreams, which metaphorically recompose the guard’s life, illustrates an important idea: that people do not exist alone, but, rather, are made in part of other people’s interpretations. Hasib, in this sense, exists through his family members’ memories of him. At the same time, as in the case of Elishva’s lost son, Daniel, this story highlights the difficulty of accepting death without having a physical body to bury. The injustice of this situation—the literal pulverization of human life—creates despair and anger, rather than quiet acceptance.
Themes
After the explosion, Hasib found himself peacefully observing the scene from above. From his elevated position, he saw the entire city, including, in the distance, the dark river. He saw a couple of dead bodies floating in the river. One of them told him to go discover what has happened to his body. This led Hasib to the cemetery, where he met a young boy sitting on his own grave. The boy told him that Hasib’s soul must have separated from his body, and that he needed to find a body for himself, otherwise something bad was bound to happen.
Hasib’s dialogues with dead people temporarily shifts the focus of the novel from the living to the dead. These scenes suggest that cities are filled with dead people just as much as they are inhabited by living residents. This shift in perspective establishes a difference between people who die with their body intact and those who don’t. It suggests that losing one’s body is particularly bad, for reasons that remain unspecified but that—following Hadi’s own beliefs—pertain to human dignity.
Themes
After looking everywhere, Hasib still failed to find his body. Finally, in Bataween, he saw a horrifying, naked body sleeping. Convinced that dawn would bring disaster for his lost soul, Hasib decided to sink into this body, filling the corpse with his soul. Satisfied, he decided to wait for the man’s family to take the corpse to the cemetery, even if this meant being buried with someone else’s name.
Hasib’s willingness to inhabit another body contrasts heavily with the stark divisions along the lines of identity that pit different groups against each other in Iraq. Hasib’s sheer happiness at having a body suggests that, when examined from a critical distance, divisions among the living are meaningless. In the end, regardless of one’s identity or name, everyone shares the same fate: a more or less peaceful death.
Themes
