Frankenstein and Frankenstein in Baghdad: The Sovereign, Homo Sacer and Violence

Abstract

This paper tries to demonstrate that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad can be interpreted depending on one of the prominent political theories of the twentieth century; that is, Giorgio Agamben’s reading of the Roman figure: homo sacer – the sacred man. Agamben’s thought has so far been applied in the fields of politics, law and human rights. As for the implications it offers to literature, they have been neglected and this reveals the gap this paper endeavours to start bridging through highlighting and comparing homo sacer figures in Frankenstein and Frankenstein in Baghdad in an attempt to illuminate future postcolonial literary and political readings of literature.