Tracing the Spectral Bodies and Ghostly Landscapes in Iraqi Fiction (Frankenstein in Baghdad & The Corpse Exhibition)

Abstract

This research aims to explore the ghostly materialities and phantasmal legacy that haunts the collective psyche of the Iraqi people as recorded via the devastation and subliminal changes occurring in the war-torn landscape within the chosen works of fiction. The study would investigate the transformation of these places ravaged by war into ghostly records that disrupt the temporal and spatial bounds. War leaves imprints of violence and lasting scars on the consciousness of a country’s people and its landscape; that becomes a breeding ground for apparitions and specters as the hauntingness subsumes it. This paper would explore the two texts; Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi and The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim; under the light Jo Frances Maddern and Peter Adey’s technique of mapping the ‘Spectro- geographies’ by performing a content based textual analysis on the chosen texts. The research would particularly look at the suffering of Iraqis within these texts and how they are making sense of the constative inconstancy that has emerged out of the ruination and turmoil that has visited the Iraqi land, the gothic nature of the war and its several aftermaths. Through the notion of spectro-geography, the research would stress on the landscape’s struggle to come at terms with its forever changed and constantly altering phantasmic character and primal reality. The study will show new motifs, symbols and literary features that have been used by Iraqi authors to put forth their understanding of the trauma experienced as the voices hailing from the periphery. The marginalized and subjugated voices from the Middle East are yet to be thoroughly researched on. That, and these recently discovered theories would give a new dimension to the theorizing and working of the post-war unconsciousness.