Imaginative Geographies and the Colonial: David Abrams’ Fobbit

Abstract

This study aims to uncover Western imaginative geographies and their colonial practices and implications in David Abrams' Fobbit (2012). It makes visible and contextualizes the invisible agonies of the colonized and revokes the colonial claims. Imaginative geographies refer to the ways in which other spaces, peoples and cultures are represented by the West as serving Western colonial designs and interests in the East. The colonial present indicates the active position of colonialism and its progressive existence in the Middle East, which was reactivated in the aftermath of 9/11. The colonized is formed through architectures of enmity that emphasize imaginaries of difference and fear of the other to instigate the colonial past into a colonial present. I make this argument in two constructs: ‘good Americans,’ which examines the colonial implications of the representation of American soldiers, and ‘bad Arabs,’ which explores the connection between the novel’s portrayal of Arabs and the American colonial presence in Iraq. Despite Abrams’ attempt to expose the means by which the U.S. Army and media polish a rather ugly image of war to make it appealing and heroic; his representation of war, American soldiers, nationals, and Iraq is overshadowed by Western imaginative geographies of the Other that consolidate the colonial present in the Middle East. This study exposes the colonial present and its manifestations as implemented in the novel, making them more visible, questioned and condemned. It gives more insight into the means used to make other spaces and people more antagonistic and thus colonizable.

Keywords: colonial present, David Abrams, Iraq War, war novel.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.55463/hkjss.issn.1021-3619.61.2