The Poetics of Adaptation in Frankenstein in Baghdad

During the peak of the sectarian war in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003, there seemed to be an absolute absence of the mind and a great deal of hatred and tension among the people of Baghdad that turned into maddening acts of terrorism, like car bombings and suicide bombers, killing thousands of innocent people. Frankenstein in Baghdad came to be the mouthpiece of that very critical phase in the modern history of Iraq. The abundant acts of killing and bloodshed during 2005 turned into an ugly form of a monster called " Whatsitsname" formed from the fragmented parts of those killed by terrorist acts. The creature bears a clear resemblance to Marry Shelley's monster in her novel Frankenstein. The monster is a loose perpetrator that kills whoever it meets. This study attempts to analyze the writer's poetics of adaptation in the novel and his debt to other literary works.


Poetics and Adaptation
Poetics is a theory of literary forms that is concerned with the text's different elements that come together and create certain effects on the reader. It goes beyond the literal meaning of the text to its dramatic representations. In other words, it is the writer's craft and tools that serve his narration in a certain theme to produce a verbal message. (Genette, 2005) Adaptation, on the other hand, is "the process by which one narrative form or medium is converted into another" (Cuddon, 9) as, for example, the graphic novel Watchmen and its film adaptation. Sometimes the same work is adapted into the same medium, like Shakespeare's King Lear and The Tempest and Bond's Lear and Cesaire's Une Tempete. The last two examples of adaptation are of interest. Slavoj Zizek states that "the only way to be faithful to a classic work is to take such as risk [ie, adapting, changing, it] -avoiding it, sticking to the traditional letter, is the safest way to betray the spirit of the classic. In other words, the only way to keep a classical work alive is to treat it as 'open', pointing towards the future". (xii) A classic is a classic because it allows itself to be read by every generation and mean something new to each. Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad is loosely based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus from which Saadawi takes the idea of the reanimated stitched up corpse and recasts it in a modern-day civil war torn, USinvaded Iraq. Such an adaptation allows the writer to indulge in creating new characters and a new storyline that, by being different from the original work, not only gain new nuances of meaning, but impregnate the original with meanings that are (yet) to be seen.

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The novel's final bombing badly disfigures Hadi, and after being stitched up at the hospital, he looks like his creation. Facing intense pressure to find the murderer in Bataween, police arrest Hadi and claim he is responsible. The people of the neighborhood celebrate the arrest in the streets as Whatsitsname looks on from a window (Saadawi, 2018).

Marry Shelley's Frankenstein
It is to Marry Shelley the invention of the fictional character is attributed. The creature comes to be known as Frankenstein, although it is its maker's name, and not its own. It becomes one of the most celebrated characters in world literature. The spark of the novel comes from a competition suggested by Byron one night when Shelley, Percy, and Byron were trapped in a house because of a stormy weather. The competition was to write the best ghost story. Marry won the competition by her creation of the novel Frankenstein (Badalamenti & Health, 2006). The monster is Victor Frankenstein's creation, assembled from old human body parts and strange chemicals, turns into a living creature by a mysterious spark. He is tall and enormously strong but with the mind of a newborn. He is abandoned by his creator Victor Frankenstein because of his ugly shape. Confused, Frankenstein tries to integrate himself into society but he fails because of his horrifying disfigured appearance. Looking in the mirror, he realizes his physical grotesqueness, an aspect of his persona that blinds society to his kind heart, gentle and innocent nature. The society plants hatred inside him. Realizing his doomed singularity and the society's rejection to him, he starts seeking revenge on his creator, starting a series of killings. First, he kills Victor's younger brother, murders Victor's best friend, and then his new wife. He avoids killing Victor because he feels Victor is like his God. The monster is an eloquent narrator in the novel and he is not a purely evil being. He shows his remarkable sensitivity and benevolence, assisting a group of poor peasants and saving a girl from drowning. However, he is rewarded only with beatings and disgust because of his appearance. Torn between vengefulness and compassion, the monster ends up lonely and tormented by remorse. Even the death of his creator-turned-would-bedestroyer offers only bittersweet relief (Badalamenti & Health, 2006).

Poetics of Adaptation in Frankenstein in Baghdad 2.1 Preface: Setting up Ambiguity
The novel opens with a co-report done by a special committee of officers from the Iraqi and US intelligence agencies. The report is about 250 pages long and is not to be published as it is classified. It is leaked from inside the Iraqi Tracking and Pursuit Department. All the documents emailed to a person who is only referred to as "the author". From the beginning of the novel, the reader is triggered by short and vague pieces of information and this arouses her/his curiosity to know what the report is, and what it tells. (Webster & Medicine, 2018) Furthermore, a committee of investigation recommends to transfer the officers responsible for leaking the report and laying off the astrologers and fortune-tellers who are employed in the department, as well as re-arresting the author for further investigation. The Iraqi-US intelligence committee officers give authentic touch to the report, whereas the unnamed author, astrologers, and fortune-tellers who are members of the department of intelligence, would scruple the reader's imagination and prepare him for the unknown events to come.

Setting (Realism vs. Surrealism) and the Rise of the Monster
In narratology, a realistic narrative creates a fictional world in which characters, who look like real people, exist and interact with each other in a world that is almost completely the same as the real world in terms of time, place, and acting persona. (

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Whatsitsname can be read as a metaphor of the whole Iraqi society. It is a hybrid character composed of different body parts that belong to Iraqi citizens from different religious backgrounds and ethnicities stitched together into a disfigured combination because it is created out of hatred and conflicts among Iraqi people. It is a "nation" that is "fragmented and injured". (Bahoora, 2015) Furthermore, Whatsitsname can be read as an international character, i.e., wherever there is an internal conflict in any society in the world, there is Whatsitsname, or Frankenstein, nourished by the blood of the civilians killed by the conflicts, and once the conflicts and bloodshed stop, that monster passes away. (Webster & Medicine, 2018). Annie Webster argues that Whatsitsname, though it is not a "coherent individual", (448) represents a symbol of salvation to the victims who have been killed and remained fragments without name, without identity, and unacknowledged. He refers to the loss of identity. He is a symbol of the forgotten people.

The Assistant
Characters "I have a number of assistants who live with me. They have banded together around me over the past three months." (137) Technically speaking, in order for Whatsitsname to commence his mission, he needs assistants and supporters. The writer employees six characters (The Magician, The Sophist, The Enemy) and (small Madman, big Madman, and biggest Madman). In the peak of the clashes of the sectarian war in Dora neighborhood, these characters help and support Whatsitsname to let him continue fighting and killing people. Each time he loses a part of his body, he begins to weaken, so they cut parts from the bodies of the killed militia fighters and add them to his body. The Magician is responsible for making sure of Whatsitsname's safety during his moves in Dora, and other parts in Baghdad. The Sophist makes plans and explains ideas for Whatsitsname: "I consult him when I have doubts about some course of action. He makes everyone feel reassured and strengthens their faith". (139) The Sophist is like a spiritual guide for Whatsitsname.
The Enemy provides Whatsitsname with important military information and he makes a "living example of what the enemy looks like and how the enemy thinks and behaves." (140) Whereas the rest three Madmen give logistic support, such as dragging the killed bodies, washing blood, stitching body parts into Whatsitsname, etc. (Jani & -, 2016) One of the passages of the novel clarifies the whole process: "They [the three madmen] dragged away the body of the man who had died bravely, leaving the body of the man who had pleaded for his lifewe called him "the saint" … 'The eldest madman cut out the rotten parts of my body, and the other two madmenthe young one and the elder onestitched in the new parts. Then they all carried me to the bathroom on the top floor, where they washed off the blood and the sticky plasma fluids and dried me. The Enemy gave me the uniform of a US special forces officer and some identity papers. Then the Sophist set about applying a thick layer of women's foundation cream to my face and gave me a mirror. I looked but didn't recognize myself. I moved my lips and realized the face was mine. "What happened?" I asked. "We've brought you back to life," said the Magician." (145) The presence of those six characters with Whatsitsname implies a symbolic connotation that he is a monstrosity created and nourished by certain characters from within the society and without whom it falls apart and dies. In other words, Saadawi thematizes the sectarian violence into two classes, i.e., the planners (Magician, Sophist, and Enemy) and the followers (the three Madmen). (Abdalkafor, 2018)  www.psychologyandeducation.net Whatsitsname is considered a "true Iraqi citizen" (140) because he is created from the Iraqi mosaic, different religious backgrounds and ethnicities of the Iraqi community, criminal and innocent individuals. Sometimes the rate of criminality increases in his body, due to the replacements from criminal body parts, sometimes it decreases when he is replaced with the innocent victims. For instance, one of the madmen tells him, "Tomorrow he'll tell you you're three quarters criminal, and later you'll wake up to find you've become totally criminal" (151). Later in one of the crossfires between the sectarian militias, he starts losing his eyesight and he can seldom see. He beholds an innocent old man, kills him and takes out his eyes and puts them on (Elayyan & volume, 2017). As a result of being a hybrid character made of criminals and innocent people, he carries contradictory traits within himself due to his complex biological nature.

Shelley's Frankenstein and Saadawi's Shisma/ Whatsitsname
Saadawi borrows the idea of a supernatural character as a hero in his novel from Shelley. He succeeds in creating a modern conception of Frankenstein to serve his theme. However, there are some comparable points to be mentioned between Whatsitsname and Frankenstein. He chooses for the creature a plebian father in order to highlight the plight of the common man. Unlike the ambitious Victor Frankenstein, Hadi has a lowly job: to scavenge through people's junk for housewares and sell them to poor people who cannot afford new ones. He is an outsider, an old man who lives on the margin of society. Unlike Victor, Hadi is not a scientist. He is a junk dealer known for telling long unbelievable tales when sitting in cafes of Baghdad. His creation is not part of an interest or adventure he pursues, as is Victor, rather he tries to create a body of his dead friend killed in a car bombing in order to bury him in a respectful way (Webster & Medicine, 2018). Hadi's goal behind creating Whatsitsname is a noble one. Out of his loyalty to his dead friend Nahem and as an expression of respect to him, he decides to form a body from different body parts. On the other side, Dr. Victor does not have that intimate relationship with his creature, though he pities him in some places in the novel. In addition, Hadi's act of creation explains why he is the protagonist, an initiator of action in the sense (Arendt, 2013) distinguished between action, labor, and work. (See her The Human Condition, especially chapters III, IV, and V) His decision to act sets him above all the other characters in the story who simply react to his action. He wants to create a grievable life out of the ungrievable beings who were killed and forgotten, a commendable deed by any measure. Hadi's act of creation is his ultimate defense of human dignity, not only for those who died, but also for those who were alive but were, as Simone Weil argues, "an alternative human species, a hybrid of man and corpse" (Balibar, 2015).

Conclusion
Frankenstein in Baghdad is a modern take on Shelley's novel. Saadawi manages to adapt Shelley's archetypal character and present it in a modern setting. The creation of Whatsitsname is a mixture of realism and surrealism at the same time, it is real as it is created out of real human parts of the killed, while the resurrection is the surreal part of it when the distressed soul of Hasib inhibits the stitched up body that is to become Whatsitsname. The novelist draws a very thin line between realism and surrealism in a smooth shift in between, resorting to religious beliefs among Iraqis based on dreaming. The intrusion of the assistant characters proves to be a technical means by which the novelist lets Whatsitsname move through the strife-stricken neighborhoods of Baghdad with high military precision. The Magician, The Sophist, and the Enemy support Whatsitsname with plans, prophesy, and military advice. Whereas the three Madmen help him continue his crimes through bandaging his injuries and replacing the damaged parts of his body with those of his victims. Saadawi draws a perplexing image that represents www.psychologyandeducation.net the sectarian war. In order not to make him a completely villainous character, Whatsitsname states that he has a "noble mission" (126) which is seeking revenge for the innocent killed in sectarian violence reflecting the confused frame of mind of the Iraqi society of that period whose vendetta does not lead to peace but to more violence and bloodshed. Finally, Whatsitsname can be taken as an international character that appears in any society once conditions are met.