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Pride of Baghdad" Study Questions

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Pride of Baghdad "Pride of Baghdad" Study Questions 1 While four lions actually did escape from the Baghdad Zoo in 2003 after an American bombing, this story has a much deeper meaning as well. How is metaphor and symbolism used throughout the novel? The author tells the story of 4 lions, but in fact, he tells the story of the population of Baghdad. In 2003, Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq. He ruled over all the people in Iraq. Hussein, and his henchmen are probably the zookeepers. They keep the lions/population caught in their empire. There is also something remarkable about the lions. There are four lions, from different ages. Take Safa for example. She is an older lion, and she has lived in the wild. Zill and Noor live their whole lives in the zoo, but they’re longing to be free. Ali doesn’t understand the situation very good. The population of Baghdad is also divided in different groups; there are people who are so old, that they still know how nice it was before Hussein was in power. Then there are the young adults, who understand the situation, but want it to stop. And there are the children; children don’t understand war, but they have to live with it. This might declare the theme ‘Freedom’, ‘War’ and ‘Violence’ in the book. Another theme might be ‘survival’. When the zoo is bombed, the lions are free. But surviving in the wild isn’t very easy. The lions have lived in the zoo for years, they didn’t had to take care of food, a place to sleep and so on. How should it be for the population of Baghdad to live in a country that isn’t ruled by anybody. While it isn’t a good way to rule a country, it was done by somebody and so there were rules. Everything in the country was clear. When there is no leader to take care of the population, the population will have to take care of itself and they can’t do that anymore. 2 Author Brian K. Vaughan worked closely with artist Niko Henrichon to combine text with compelling graphics. What role do these graphics play? How might they affect the meaning of the story or the impression that the reader gets? Do you think it is more affective with two medias than it would be with just text? In my opinion, the graphics are very important. With just the text, you probably wouldn’t understand the story of the animals so well as you do with the graphics. It gives a very good indication of how the lions live. Without graphics, you would have to think of this yourself. That isn’t bad of course, but that is fantasy. This book is based on reality, so the writer probably doesn’t want the reader to use its own imagination. The writer want to tell the real story. Besides that, 2 is more than 1, pictures and text is always more than only one of them. The combination of text and graphics is probably chosen to bring the story even better, and make the reader conscious of the bad situation in Iraq. 3 Vaughan focuses this story around animals and narrates from the animals' perspective, not humans. How might this affect the interpretation or emotional reaction of the reader? At first, when you tell a story through the perspective of animals, you create a different view on the kind of story. In this story, the lions are able to think, they’re able to speak as humans. This isn’t possible of course, but you give a different character to the story. You would think that the story is a fairytale, while in fact it is the truth. Another reason for Vaughan to use animals is because animals in a zoo are helpless. They live in a very small area, and they can’t get away from that. Readers would get mercy with the animals. In fact, the animals are the inhabitants of Baghdad, and in this way, the reader would also pity with the population. 4 Each lion offers a very different perspective throughout the novel. What are these different perspectives, and what roles do they play? What other perspectives and opinions do we see throughout the novel in addition to the four lions? Safa: Safa is the old lion, who has lived in the wild before she came to the zoo. She tells the other lions how great life is outside the zoo. Safa is the wise one of the 4 lions. This refers to the old inhabitants of Baghdad, who have lived in the country without Hussein as their dictator. They know how beautiful the city, the country, the life was without him. Safa also says to Zill; I may have a few winters on you, but I can see what’s coming down the pike more clearly with my one good eye than you ever could with two.’ The older generation living in Baghdad understand the situation better, they know more and so they’re wiser. The loss of Safa’s eye has so got a meaning, too. Zill: Zill represents the inhabitants who don’t believe in freedom anymore. Zill is fatalistic, depressive and sad. He doesn’t believe that there will be freedom. Everything seems bad in the eyes of Zill. He completely lost his hope, and he doesn’t seem to care about anything anymore. Of course, there are also people in Baghdad who have the same thoughts as Zill. Noor: Noor is the mother of Ali, and she is the mother of the other lions a little bit as well. She takes care of everybody, and she wants everybody to stay together. She just wants peace. All the mothers in Iraq are caring about their families, and their friends. They probably don’t want war and they want this bad life to end. Ali: The little lion Ali is symbolizing the children in Iraq. They have to be careless, they have to be able to play and be child. They’re innocent, naïve and blameless. But they’re still in this horrible situation. Ali doesn’t understand anything from the war, why ‘the sky is falling’ and why they have to leave the zoo. Children in Iraq have the same problem, and so Ali can be seen as the children. 5 Throughout the novel, the lions are faced with the question of freedom versus comfort and safety. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each situation? How might this relate to citizens of Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries? The lions have lived in the zoo for a very long time. They’re used to it. They lost their freedom, what they really want. They can’t go anywhere. This is a disadvantage of living in the zoo. But on the other side, the lions don’t have to do anything; they don’t have to take care of food, for example. When they’re ill, when anything is wrong, there are people who tell what to do. You can compare this with the situation in Baghdad. The people are completely under control of Hussein and his henchmen. This is very bad, because the inhabitants don’t have any freedom. They can’t do anything for themselves. On the other side, the leaders made the rules, so everything is clear. Everybody knows what they can expect. Now, freedom would be great, because everybody is allowed to do what he/she wants. But when there are no rules anymore, nobody will listen to nobody anymore and other quarrels will form automatically. Both situations have their advantages and disadvantages. 6 What are some scenes from the novel that stand out to you? How might they be especially pivotal or be particularly relevant to the conflict? What symbolism and metaphor is present in these scenes? The first scene I really remember is when Ali is with the monkeys. The monkeys don’t have good meanings with that. But Ali is still a child, and children are very amendable. It might mean that the bad men in Baghdad, want to influence the children with their ideas and thoughts, because children don’t know the bad things, they want to belong to the ‘cool guys’ and they like to learn and to grow. Another scene is the scene with the turtle. The turtle says; ‘Babylon’s a town downriver. Their lion’s a statue of one of your kind trying to eat a man…but the man’s fighting off the big stone cat. Legend says that as long as that statue’s still standing, this land’ll never fall to outsiders.’ And on the last page of the book, you see this statue still standing. The story goes about 2003. I think that this means that the Americans are already in Iraq, but they didn’t kill ‘the problem’ yet, because Hussein was killed in 2006. The Americans were busy stopping Hussein, and they already captured Baghdad, but the country didn’t fall yet. .
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