Types of Grotesque Character in Ahmad Alsaadawi’s Frankstein in Baghdad

Abstract

Grotesque is a term that describes everything that seems unfamiliar. It includes the anomaly, the distorted, the ugly, the strange, and the mad, all of which have a philosophical dimension that rejects the monistic and absolute view and is based on the contradictory duality that expresses the individual’s reality in its two parts: the bright and the dark, the complete and the imperfect. The events in Frankenstein in Baghdad take place in the years of 2005 and 2006 when Iraq witnessed a severe state of chaos, destruction and killing. These horrific incidents are reflected in the characters of the novel as they appear to be distorted, insane, marginalized, cynical, quackery, masked, and blind. The value of the novel lies in its focus on this deep distortion that almost dominates the characters in terms of form and content, especially when they lost a sense of their value in Grotesque space. Consequently, these characters were granted their privacy and were allowed to interact and move in this grotesque space to adopt a world saturated with wounds, refraction, and pain without finding a way out of their misery except through sarcasm, which gives a deep meaning to their situation. Keyword: Novel, Frankenstein, Grotesque, Distortion, Frankenstein in Baghdad.