Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

Throughout the play, the gold gun is a symbol of greed and power: through its original owner Uday, the rich, self-admitted torturer; through Tom, who steals it and wants to use it for his own financial gain; through Kev, who uses it to kill the Tiger and brags about having it; and through Musa, who uses it to kill Tom and to assert autonomy over his fate. The gun highlights the brutality and violence of the search for power in war; all who carry it, save Musa, end up dead.

The gun also showcases the contrast between the Americans’ stated aims in the Iraq War and their actual behavior on the ground. Tom and Kev view the gun as a trophy they have won through conquest while Musa sees it as a physical manifestation of Uday’s evil. “You have no investment in this gun, it does not mean anything to you outside of the fact that it is gold,” Musa tells Tom. “This gun has a history. But you, you’re looting so you have something, something to take home” (54).