Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
PhD student, Department of Arabic Language and Literature,Islamic Azad University, Karaj Branch, Karaj, Iran
2
Assistant Professor in the Department of Arabic Languages, Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran
10.22080/ltcat.2026.33235.1016
Abstract
Gothic literature, drawing on elements such as horror, the supernatural, ambiguity, the corpse and physical decay, disrupts the boundaries between life and death as well as between the ordinary and the terrifying. Within this framework, death is not merely the end of life; rather, it can become a narrative mechanism for producing horror and representing individual and collective crises. Ahmed Saadawi’s novel Frankenstein in Baghdad, by placing the Frankenstein model within the context of war and violence in Iraq after 2003, has particular potential for such a representation. The present study, adopting a descriptive-analytical approach, examines the representation and Gothic function of death in the novel and, focusing on six textual instances, analyzes the role of the corpse and bodily remains, the return of the dead, the supernatural, ambiguity, horror, and physical decay. The findings show that Saadawi, by linking death to the remains of corpses and the formation of the Shesma, disrupting the boundary between life and death, portraying the ambiguous status of victims, and depicting the gradual deterioration of the body, transforms death from a merely physical and narrative event into an active mechanism within the Gothic structure of the novel. From this perspective, death, in addition to creating horror and the supernatural, enables the representation of trauma, the continuation of violence, and the crisis of identity in Iraqi society. Therefore, the Gothic function of death in the novel emerges from the connection between real violence, physical decay, the supernatural, and the disruption of the boundary between life and death.
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