Rajiv Joseph's characters in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo wander the war-torn Iraqi landscape looking for answers and finding none. The characters span a wide range of humanities: from clueless young American soldiers to a former gardener now employed as an interpreter for the occupying army to the ghost of Saddam Hussein's son, Uday. The main character is Tiger, but there's nothing feline about him. He walks upright, wears clothes and pontificates philosophically. As characters die in this allegorical tale, their ghosts remain and continue to interact. Joseph draws inspiration from current events and relies heavily on literary allusions to ask the existential question: where is God? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essay Joseph's impetus for the Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was the actual shooting of Mamdouh, a Bengal tiger in an Iraqi zoo. At a drunken party, a drunken American soldier attempted to share his food with Mamdouh, who – being a tiger – mutilated the soldier's arm. The soldier's companion shot Mamdouh in retaliation. The United States gifted the zoo two rare Bengal tigers and $23,000 in compensation, but zookeepers were still mourning the loss of an animal they loved, an animal born and raised at the zoo. Joseph's tiger was not bred in the zoo, but was captured in the zoo. jungles of Bengal. “I won’t lie. When I’m hungry, I get stupid,” says Tiger. “I just followed the smell, took a bite, and then fhwipp!” (150). After Tiger is shot, he remains in the room as a ghost. Alarmed by life after death, Tiger wanders from scene to scene wondering why his soul doesn't ascend to another world. He theorizes that his tiger nature led him to sin in the jungles of Bengal, but that life in the zoo should serve as his penance. "You would think that the twelve years spent in a zoo, in a cage, never hunting, never killing, never breaking God's ridiculous law... you would think that I would have atoned for my tiger character," says Tiger ( 152). Tiger considers himself an unapologetic atheist, but death and the resulting ghostly existence raise questions. “What if my very nature is in direct conflict with the moral code of the universe? » Tiger thought. “That would make me quite an individual” (187). The tiger begs God for guidance to make things right, but God eludes the tiger. Joseph's other impetus for the Bengal tiger at the Baghdad Zoo appears to be William Blake's poem, "The Tyger." The play parallels the poem in many ways. In the play, Tiger wonders, "What kind of twisted bastard creates a predator and then punishes it for its prey?" » (214). Blake's poem asks "Tyger, tiger, burning / In the forests of night, / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" (Blake, 838). Both works question how God could have created such a killing machine. “The Tyger” asks whether the predator is a creation of “the deep or the distant heavens,” a creation of hell or heaven. A little girl in the Bengal Tiger's topiary garden at the Baghdad Zoo could be likened to Blake's lamb. “The Tyger” asks, “Is it he who created the lamb who created you?” Joseph's Tiger tells the story of the ghost of an innocent little girl in the topiary garden. Tiger tells her that he feels guilty for eating two children in the jungle, but the girl doesn't understand because she is sinless. “She has no guilt,” Tiger said. “And I’m like, of course not..