32 pages • 1 hour read
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
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Themes
Transcendence, Religion, and the Limits of Knowledge
Bengal Tiger explores questions about transcendence and the afterlife, questioning whether and how God exists and what role religion plays in the midst of war and trauma. Kev and the Tiger are forced to confront God and what happens after you die once they find themselves roaming around Baghdad as ghosts, unable to leave: “When an atheist suddenly finds himself walking around after death, he has got some serious reevaluating to do” (26).
Each character has a different relationship with God, struggling to understand where God is in the face of war and suffering. To wrestle with God is to wrestle with the limits of knowledge, and even in the afterlife, God’s intentions remain mysterious. The Tiger pleads with God for a sign and berates God for not speaking; he ultimately decides that if God stands by and does nothing in the face of senseless war and killing, then he as a tiger will accept his own instinct to kill. Kev’s journey is different: He believes in God but initially seems indifferent to God’s presence while alive; following his death, Kev wants to use his newfound skills and understanding for a higher purpose.
There seems to be a dichotomy in how religion is treated amongst the living. For some, like Tom, and the Muslims who still perform their daily calls to prayer (which the Tiger hears in Scene 4), religion remains something to reach for in the midst of trauma and danger. For others, like Musa and the woman with no hands who tells Tom “there is no God” (64), religion is absent from the war-torn Baghdad, as they feel God cannot hear them. Musa also suggests that the war is a result of God’s indifference to his creation: “God has spoken. This world. This is what He’s said” (68).
Guilt, Sin, and Redemption
Bengal Tiger also works to define what constitutes a sin, especially when characters are following what seems to be their God-given nature. The Tiger constantly wonders whether he is stuck in Baghdad as punishment for having eaten children and other animals in the past, and whether those choices were wrong despite his “Tigerness.” He becomes angry with God for his struggle—“What kind of twisted bastard creates a predator and then punishes him for preying?”—a struggle which is also a metaphor for human nature (51). By the end, the Tiger accepts his nature and stops fighting it.
Other characters have their own reckonings with guilt and their sins. Kev suffers a breakdown and kills himself after killing the Tiger, seeking redemption from guilt by trying to cut off his own hand. Tom tells Kev he regrets the way he treated him in the hospital, suggesting he would have acted differently if he believed Kev would actually kill himself; the ghosts Kev and Tom see are manifestations of their own guilt. Musa expresses guilt for killing Tom and accepts both his punishment—to hear Uday’s voice and reexperience his sister’s death—and his mission to atone by creating beauty in the world. Uday, in contrast, freely acknowledges his sins but feels no remorse; he doesn’t seek redemption.
The Iraq War and Its Effects
In addition to exploring each character’s concept of sin and redemption, the play also treats the Iraq War as America’s sin. Although there is no broader sense of atonement or moral reckoning over America’s actions, the Iraqi characters often reference America’s sins against the Iraqi people: “You’re crazy, empty, soulless fool, all of you, ruining our lives with your stupid, mindless game!” (24). The play is set in war-torn Baghdad, where bombs constantly go off, amid destroyed settings like the topiary garden and the building where Tom has stashed the gold toilet seat. Several scenes illustrate the toll the war has taken on Iraqi civilians: the scene in which Kev harasses woman and man during a raid of their home, calling them “towelheads” (19), and the little girl ghost who has lost half her face in bomb blast.
The play takes a seemingly critical view of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, depicting Americans as crude and macho with selfish goals, such as Tom’s looting and obsession with bringing back the gold gun and toilet seat to sell on eBay. “WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU,” Kev tells the Iraqi woman and man, a statement made ironic through Kev’s seemingly unprovoked harassment of the couple during the scene and the threatening manner in which he stands over them (21). At the same time, the play acknowledges the toll the war took on American soldiers, even when they believed themselves to be “above” the Iraqis. Kev, whose killing of the Tiger drives him insane, tells Musa, “Jesus! Everything I see, every day. Is just wack, you know?” (17), while Tom, after Musa shoots him, confesses his surprise at actually facing consequences for his behavior in Iraq, saying that he thought, “I was never supposed to die here” (63).
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