A Sense of the Tragic

Abstract

"A Sense of the Tragic" is a postcolonial novel written in the tradition of classical revenge tragedies such as The Oresteia and pre-modern English revenge tragedies such as The Spanish Tragedy and Hamlet. The narrative begins with a scene atop the World Trade Center the night before the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001 and continues into the so-called 'War on Terror' with a post-colonial bent, exploring the struggles of the imperial periphery, the contradictions of the 'forever war' and the 'forgotten war,' as well as the various intersections of race, nationality, and other markers of identity as they pertain to the edges of contemporary empire. The story is narrated by an impish narrator named Revenge who prefers to relay the events of the story as if they are occurring on a television screen, mimicking both the 'image-event' and 'spectacle' quality of news coverage of terrorist attacks and the desensitized coverage of violence during 'forgotten wars.' By following the protagonist Zaid, a Pakistani boy who was born with the inexplicable desire to exact vengeance upon an enemy whose identity and location he does not know, the reader is encouraged to examine the nature of revenge and wars of revenge, as well as the aimless nature of the hate that so often fuels the desire for imperial adventures. The story also explores the themes of family, immigration and the Pakistani politics.