scholarly journals Dystopian Reality in Frankenstein in Baghdad a novel by Ahmed Saadawi

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-22
Author(s):  
Shaima Muzher Abid Alreda Alsaedi

Dystopian literature is important in old and modern literature. It depicts a world in which everything is imperfect, chaotic and distorted. It shows a nightmarish image yet it is true in some afflicted communities. It mainly deals with war, oppression and disastrous situations. Almost all the characteristics of dystopian literature are real in Ahmed Saadawi’s novel Frankenstein in Baghdad. These characteristics are real and tangible in the place where the events of the novel occurred. These characteristics are manifested in people’s fear from the government, the American troops and terrorism attacks. Also the unstable life that they are forced to adapt.  In addition, the lack of freedom and independence create a huge gap between citizens and the government. Baghdad was devastated by many oppressive factors like: American annoying troops, terrorists’ explosions attacks, incompetent government highly officials, and militias’ sectarian attacks. The only imaginative tool of dystopia that Saadawi use is the creation of Whatsitsname.  Saadawi tries to drag his readers’ attention to a magical-realistic world. All the other incidents are real and present in everyday life in Baghdad in 2005; like the unsafe capital, the disintegration of family members, the separated limps of victims. Saadawi virtually described the dark era in Baghdad at that time. The bloodshed, the torture and massive killing was overwhelming the city.  Dystopian fiction links elements of truth that is specific to the time in which it is written in with science or imaginary elements that represent the terrifying direction we are winding to. Frankenstein in Baghdad converses this classic formula: the dystopian fundamentals of the novel are not engrained in its hypothetical and mythical elements but rather in the very real, frightening violence that Baghdad witnessed in 2005.

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Besin Gaspar

This research deals with the development of  self concept of Hiroko as the main character in Namaku Hiroko by Nh. Dini and tries to identify how Hiroko is portrayed in the story, how she interacts with other characters and whether she is portrayed as a character dominated by ”I” element or  ”Me”  element seen  from sociological and cultural point of view. As a qualitative research in nature, the source of data in this research is the novel Namaku Hiroko (1967) and the data ara analyzed and presented deductively. The result of this analysis shows that in the novel, Hiroko as a fictional character is  portrayed as a girl whose personality  develops and changes drastically from ”Me”  to ”I”. When she was still in the village  l iving with her parents, she was portrayed as a obedient girl who was loyal to the parents, polite and acted in accordance with the social customs. In short, her personality was dominated by ”Me”  self concept. On the other hand, when she moved to the city (Kyoto), she was portrayed as a wild girl  no longer controlled by the social customs. She was  firm and determined totake decisions of  her won  for her future without considering what other people would say about her. She did not want to be treated as object. To put it in another way, her personality is more dominated by the ”I” self concept.


Author(s):  
Taïeb Berrada

In his novel Le jour du Roi Abdellah Taïa explores the theme of alterity in its relation to two political and symbolic forces: expressing one’s self in the language of the Other and narrating homo-erotic and homosexual relationships in Morocco under the dictatorship of Hassan II. It is the translation of these two aspects that leads to the creation of a new narrative about homosexual Franco-Moroccan identity. This narrative, in turn, reveals the instability of a model of identification subjected to a normalizing sexual apparatus controlling bodies and minds in a place where homosexuality is still punishable by law. This renders the identification process for the two main characters of the novel particularly problematic as they can no longer sustain it without going back to the sources of foundational myths and more particularly to the original murder in Islam. This article argues that the killing of one character by the other goes back to the original murder of Abel by Cain, a model which becomes emancipated from the Western Oedipal complex, translating a new conception of a love relation between two male characters. By so doing, it calls for a reevaluation of the normativity imposed by the king who is using his power based on a patriarchal interpretation of religious legitimacy in view of political gain.


Author(s):  
Barbara Elizabeth Hanna ◽  
Peter Cowley

China Miéville’s 2009 'Weird' detective novel The City and The City is a tale of two city states, culturally distinct, between which unpoliced contact is forbidden. While residents of each city can learn about the other’s history, geography, politics, see photographs and watch news footage of the other city, relations between the two are tightly monitored and any direct contact requires a series of protocols, some of which might seem reasonable, or at least familiar: entry permits, international mail, international dialing codes, intercultural training courses. What complicates these apparently banal measures is the relative positioning of the two cities, each one around, within, amongst the other. The two populations live side by side, under a regime which requires ostentatious and systematic disregard or 'unnoticing' of the other in any context but a tightly regulated set of encounters. For all that interculturality is endemic to everyday life in the 21st century, what is striking is that critical and popular uptake of this novel so frequently decries the undesirability, the immorality even, of the cultural separation between the two populations, framing it as an allegory of unjust division within a single culture, and thus by implication endorsing the erasure of intercultural difference. We propose an alternative reading which sees this novel as exploring the management of intercultural encounters, and staging the irreducibility of intercultural difference. We examine how the intercultural is established in the novel, and ask how it compares to its representations in prevalent theoretical models, specifically that of the Third Place.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Egwolf ◽  
O.P. Nicanor Austriaco

ABSTRACTCOVID-19 is a novel respiratory disease first identified in Wuhan, China, that is caused by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. To better understand the dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, we have used real-time mobility data to modify the DELPHI Epidemiological Model recently developed at M.I.T., and to simulate the pandemic in Metro Manila. We have chosen to focus on the National Capital Region, not only because it is the nation’s demographic heart where over a tenth of the country’s population live, but also because it has been the epidemiological epicenter of the Philippine pandemic. Our UST CoV-2 model suggests that the government-imposed enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) has successfully limited the spread of the pandemic. It is clear that the initial wave of the pandemic is flattening, though suppression of viral spread has been delayed by the local pandemics in the City of Manila and Quezon City. Our data also reveals that replacing the ECQ with a General Community Quarantine (GCQ) will increase the forecasted number of deaths in the nation’s capital unless rigorous tracing and testing can be implemented to prevent a second wave of the pandemic.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-157
Author(s):  
Mohammad Mostafa Ansari Ramandi ◽  
Mohammadreza Baay ◽  
Nasim Naderi

The disaster due to the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) around the world has made investigators enthusiastic about working on different aspects of COVID-19. However, although the pandemic of COVID-19 has not yet ended, it seems that COVID-19 compared to the other coronavirus infections (the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome [MERS] and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome [SARS]) is more likely to target the heart. Comparing the previous presentations of the coronavirus family and the recent cardiovascular manifestations of COVID-19 can also help in predicting possible future challenges and taking measures to tackle these issues.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 422-431
Author(s):  
Niranjan Mudliar ◽  
Paramjeet Singh

India has been progressing steadily since last two decades in terms of affordability of commodity and purchasing power of the common man. This has given rise to demand which leads to the continuous economic growth. Of course, support from the Government of India as well as various state Governments has come in the form of reforms and infrastructure funding. However this growth has also seen the disadvantage of erratic consumption by wealthy persons as compared to the economically weaker sections, for example on one side there is heavy demand of passenger cars by the higher income group who uses it sparingly but on the other side people of the lower income group who are more in numbers have to rely on public transport. This imbalance creates a wider gap between public affordability to consume a particular commodity like passenger cars. On one side there are persons who buy the latest model introduced by the manufacturer in spite of having sufficient numbers at their disposal and on the other side basic lowest level model are out of reach of some persons in the society, who rely on two-wheeler or public transport which is not reliable. This has not only created a huge gap in public expenditure but has also impact the environment. With year on year increase in number of vehicles in tier 2 cities like Bhopal, there is tremendous influence on the carbon dioxide (CO2) in and around the city. Past decade saw increase in maximum temperatures during summer rise by 3 – 4 degrees above normal in Bhopal and there is clear effect on the monsoon pattern too which has become inconsistent with rains reaching 120 mm in three days. Earlier this quantity was spread over a month. The last major season of winter is seen getting reduced to two months only from the earlier four, again with temperatures dropping suddenly below normal etc. This effect must be the result of increasing number of passenger vehicles in the city apart from other factors which also need detailed study for their influence.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-109
Author(s):  
Marina A. Kozlova

The paper is devoted to the peculiarities of the creation of the personified image of the city in the novel “The Dead [City of] Bruges” by Georges Raymond Constantin Rodenbach, which, according to the author himself, represents not only the protagonist, but also its organising force. The Belgian author draws on an earlier literary tradition, according to which the city appears to the poet's mind in the form of a woman. The image of the city is built on the combination and interaction of different elements, among which those that are considered in the article: the theme of duality, the motif of reflection, which becomes the main constructional principle of the image system of the novel, as well as references to mythological and literary archetypes. The theme of duplicity is directly connected with the category of correspondence or analogy, which is central to Rodenbach's oeuvre and forms a peculiar poetics of reflection and determines the choice of expressive means. Dualism is associated with a hostile, dark and demonic force, contrasted with the "holy" and infallible feminine ideal, embodied in the image of the perished beloved, who is also a prototype of the city. The poeticised image of the city is related to archetypical figures that are typical of European symbolism – first of all, Ophelia, but also Orpheus and Narcissus, all this through an appeal to the symbolism of water and the otherworld, then through the main character's attempt to overcome the border between worlds and create a new myth about love that defeats death.


Author(s):  
Anna S. Akimova ◽  

Moscow is the city which united the characters of A.N. Tolstoy’s novel “Peter the First”. Kitay-Gorod is the space where the action of the first book is mainly set. In the novel Tolstoy showed in great detail the everyday life of the city and its inhabi- tants. According to the I.E. Zabelin’s research (“History of the city of Moscow”) in late 17 — early 18 th centuries Moscow was like a big village that is why Tolstoy relied on his childhood memories about the life in the small village Sosnovka (Samara Region) describing the streets of Moscow. The novel begins with the description of a poor peasant household of Brovkin near Moscow, then Volkov’s noble estate is depicted and Menshikov’s house. The space of the city is expanding with each new “address”. Moscow estates, and in particular, connected with the figure of “guardian, lover of the Princess-ruler” V.V. Golitsyn, in Tolstoy’s novel are inextricably linked with the character’s living and with the life of the country. The description of the palace built by Golitsyn at the peak of his career is based on the Sergei Solovyov’s “History of Russia in ancient times”. Golitsyn left it and went to his estate outside Moscow Medvedkovo and from there in exile.


Author(s):  
Bayu Kharisma ◽  
Adji Pratikto

The paper aims to examine how the growth impact of government spending in Indonesia, with a focus on several expenditure sectors, namely defense, education, health, agriculture, transport and communications, and manufacturing sectors. Based on the 17 sectors studied, only 6 sectors significantly influence economic growth, namely industrial sector, agriculture and irrigation sector, transportation and transportation sector, environment and spatial sector, political sector and mass media lighting, and security of order. Meanwhile, of the six sectors, only the security sector of order has a positive effect on economic growth, while the other five sectors negatively affect economic growth. If not paid attention to the level of significance, almost all sectors of development expenditure have a negative impact on economic growth, only 5 sectors that have a positive influence that is the labor sector, education sector, national culture, trust in God YME, youth and sports, housing and residential sector , the science and technology sector, as well as the security and order sectors. However, only the security sector of order has a significant effect, while the other four sectors have no significant effect. This result differs from previously conclusions, where their overall conclusion of the government development spending sector has a significant effect, the effect being positive. However, the same conclusions are generated for the security and order sectors, where the results are positive and significant.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-94
Author(s):  
Massimo Leone

Abstract The Casa da Nostalgia, or “Nostalgic house,” in the Taipa area of the special administrative region of Macau, is a museum devoted to temporary exhibitions reconstructing everyday life in the city, especially in the epoch of Portuguese ruling. Just opposite the museum, on the other side of a large pond, a giant casino, the Venetian Macau, reproduces Venice both with its external architecture and its interior design. The article analyzes these two urban settings in order to develop a semiotic understanding of as many ways of symbolically reconstructing cities. On the one hand, cities can be reconstructed in a nostalgic form; the essay inquires on the origin and the consequences of urban nostalgia; on the other hand, cities can be reconstructed as ersatz. The article further investigates the dialectics between predominantly temporal or prevailingly spatial urban reconstructions, with reference to the socio-cultural dynamics that have changed Macau in the last decades. The article concludes with the methodological suggestion that the study of urban re-constructions requires the combined efforts of several disciplines, jointly investigating why, how, but also to what effect cities are re-built.


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