Similarities and Differences between Dr. Frankenstein and Frankenstein in Baghdad

Influences are unconscious imitations that result in the occurrence of new beliefs and trends in a literary work that is inspired by outside models. Analogies are similarities in ideas, mood, structure and or style in literary works that are otherwise unrelated. Sadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad borrows some of its ideas from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for example, the way the monster is made in Sadawi’s novel is almost similar to the process used in Mary Shelley’s novel. In both stories, the monstrous creatures are made up of collections of scavenged parts from different dead bodies that somehow are made to work together and unite to form a sentient being.

The differences that arise when comparing the two literary works include the divergence of genres. In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, the story fits more closely to the genre of science fiction while in Sadawi’s story the novel falls under dystopian fiction (Johnson, 2018). In Mary Shelly’s novel, Frankenstein is made by a brilliant scientist who wants to create perfect beings whose experiment ends in disaster. However, in Sadawi’s novel, Frankenstein in Baghdad is not a science experiment but instead, an ordinary man attempts to do the right thing in collecting the cadaver of war victims to give them a decent burial by stitching different parts together to obtain a complete body that can be buried. The result of this attempt is a Frankenstein monster.

There are similarities in the trends toward violence depicted by both authors. In Mary Shelly’s Dr Frankenstein the monster is at first unwittingly violent towards humans. He suffocates Dr Frankenstein’s younger brother who screams in response to the physical appearance of the monster. Similarly, in Sadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad, the monster engages in violence to perpetuate its existence by killing innocents to replace the rotting parts of the bodies belonging to the owners it has already avenged.

Motifs are relationships or patterns that appear in both novels where both monsters feel entitled to engage in violence fueled by a cause that they feel justified (Mahmood, 2021). For that reason, Sadawi borrows a concept from a western writer to express outrage at the violence that arose as a result of the conflict due to the American occupation of the Middle East. The pattern common in both novels is pervasive violence. In both stories, human lives are endangered and even terminated in painful ways. Thus the theme of violence is common to both novels which were inspired by events happening in the Middle Eastern and western worlds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Johnson, J. A. (2018). Dr. Frankenstein, I Presume? Revising the Popular Image of Frankenstein. Literature and Medicine, 36(2), 287-311. doi:10.1353/lm.2018.0015

Mahmood, K. A. (2021). The Appropriation of Innocence: From Shelley’s Frankenstein to Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad. doi:10.31235/osf.io/dw45y