TA 2014 Study Guide - Final Guide: Baghdad Zoo, Rajiv Joseph, Ghost Character
30 Aug 2016
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Mother is american born of german and british heritage, father is an. Went to miami of ohio degree in creative writing. Served in the peace corps, worked in senegal, global consciousness. Source of the play stems from a headline: september 21, 2003, us soldier kills tiger in baghdad zoo, someone was trying to feed the tiger and got hurt so another shot the tiger. Absurdism/ existentialism: attempt to show a world in which life is without any pre-ordained meaning, no predestined path, face the overwhelming reality of freedom. Theatrical metaphor: the location and the physical action operate literally and metaphorically. Everyone has a ghost or a past in this play. Reaction to the holocaust, the atomic bomb. Shows an absurd universe through stage images and language empty of meaning. Absurd = that which is contrary to reason. Characters exist in ravaged landscape (= the human condition) struggle to keep going in inhospitable world.
