A comparative study on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus and Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad

In literary discussions, the terms like "hypertextuality" and "adaptation" are frequently used. It is customary to discuss how one work influences the other when comparing two works of fiction, whether plays or movies. Even though the two works were written at different times or in different contexts, it is still possible to draw parallels between them to highlight how one work influenced the other. By bringing back Mary Shelley's legacy and putting it in a new setting, award-winning Iraqi novelist Ahmed Saadawi proposes a new look at the violence and horror that were part of everyday life in Iraq during the US occupation in 2003 and the following civil war. The work is unique in Arabic fiction because of its stunning writing style and bravery in addressing reality and responding to the hidden fears, concerns, and goals of many parts of the population. Saadawi removes the differences between the living and the dead, between the victims and the people who hurt them, and between reality and illusion. This study analyses Shelley's legacy and reveals how a Western text influenced Saadawi's Arabic text through the concept of the postcolonial monster. Thus, the thesis draws parallels between the two versions of the Frankenstein story. Frankenstein in Baghdad was written with a lot of inspiration from Mary Shelley's novel. But Saadawi's Frankenstein is the product of a separate culture with its own signs, symbols and language. The novel emphasises the need to realise the current situation in Iraq. This study examines the colonial context common to Mary Shelley's novel regarding the concept of the post-colonial monster. This is what prompted Saadawi to create a terrifying character who appears in the form of a protest in the gothic scenes of the bomb-ravaged Iraqi streets. This study explores whether Saadawi's work is a simple copy of Mary Shelley's novel, an adaptation, or a contextualised change of the concept through the sufferings of contemporary Iraq. In this study, we aim to discover how the characters in the novels share many similarities but also undergo a metamorphic change. This study also tries to analyse the novels in the context of post-colonialism and the metaphor of Iraq's monster and its relationship with Iraq's current situation. The term monster will be interpreted in the context of colonialism and post-colonialism, thus, shedding light on how the other is dehumanised to exercise power in society. Keywords: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Ahmed Saadawi, Frankenstein in Baghdad, monstrosity, colonialism, postcolonialism.