ASSEMBLAGES OF DEATH: NECROCAPITALIST PRODUCTION AND FAILED REVOLUTION IN FRANKENSTEIN IN BAGHDAD
ASSEMBLAGES OF DEATH: NECROCAPITALIST PRODUCTION AND FAILED REVOLUTION IN FRANKENSTEIN IN BAGHDAD

Summary/Abstract: This paper explores the Whatsitsname in Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad as a material and symbolic product of the necrocapitalist economy that defines post-invasion Iraq. Drawing upon the idea of necrocapitalism and monster theory, the paper examines the Whatsitsname as a monstrous assemblage forged from the debris of war, a spectral figure that both embodies and critiques the imbrication of death, disposability, and commodification. Methodologically, this study undertakes a close textual analysis of the creature’s narrative arc, examining how his transformation from moral avenger to indiscriminate executioner reflects the erosion of revolutionary agency under the weight of systemic violence and the inadequacies of insurgency within a necrocapitalist framework, where resistance is subsumed into the very machinery it opposes. By foregrounding the Whatsitsname’s ultimate failure to transcend its debilitating circumstances, the paper argues that his monstrosity reveals not emancipatory potential but the recursive reproduction of violence that undergirds the post-2003 war economy. By exploring how the creature’s unraveling underscores the futility of resistance when severed from collective struggle, thus marking him as a failed revolutionary, this reading aims to contribute to current debates on literary monstrosity and political resistance by situating the Whatsitsname within a broader critique of how neoliberal war structures render revolutionary subjects both impossible and undead.

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