Rajiv Joseph's characters in The Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo wander the war-torn Iraqi landscape looking for answers but finding none. The characters span a wide range of humanity: from young, ignorant 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 title character is Tiger, but there is nothing feline about him. He walks upright, wears clothes and pontificates philosophically. When characters die in this allegorical tale, their ghosts remain and continue to interact. Joseph draws from current events and relies heavily on literary allusion to ask the existential question: where is God? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Joseph's impetus for The Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was the real-life shooting of Mamdouh, a Bengal tiger at an Iraqi zoo. During an alcohol-fueled party, a drunken American soldier attempted to share his food with Mamdouh, who, being a tiger, mauled the soldier's arm. The soldier's companion shot Mamdouh in retaliation. The United States gave the zoo two rare Bengal tigers and $23,000 in compensation, but zookeepers still mourned 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 jungles of Bengal. “I won't lie. When I'm hungry, I get stupid,” Tiger explains. “I just followed the smell, took a bite, and then fhwipp!” (150). After Tiger is shot, he remains in the show as a ghost. Alarmed by life after death, Tiger wanders from scene to scene wondering why his soul isn't ascending into another world. He theorizes that his tiger nature has led him to sin in the jungles of Bengal, but life at the zoo is supposed to serve as penance. “You would think that the twelve years I spent in a zoo, in a cage, never hunting, never killing, never breaking God's ridiculous law… you would think I would have atoned for my tiger” says Tiger (152). Tiger considers himself an unabashed atheist, but death and his subsequent ghostly existence raise questions. “What if my very nature was in direct conflict with the moral code of the universe?” Tiger Muses. “That would make me a pretty damned individual” (187). The tiger begs God to guide him in making 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 Tiger." The work parallels the poem in many ways. In the play, Tiger wonders, "What kind of twisted bastard creates a predator and then punishes him for preying?" (214). Blake's poem asks, "Tiger, tiger, burning bright / In the forests of night, / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame your fearful symmetry?" (Blake, 838). Both works question how God could create such a killing machine. “The Tiger” asks whether the predator is a creation of the “depths or distant skies,” a creation of Hell or Heaven. A little girl in the Bengal Tiger topiary garden at the Baghdad Zoo could be equated with Blake's lamb. “The Tiger” asks, “Did he who created the lamb create you?” Joseph's Tiger tells the story of the ghost of a little innocent 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 he is sinless. “He has no guilt,” Tiger says. “And I say, obviously not. What have you ever done?" (197). Joseph answers the question of.