Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

Bengal Tiger explores questions about transcendence and the afterlife, questioning whether and how God exists and what role religion plays in the midst of war and trauma. Kev and the Tiger are forced to confront God and what happens after you die once they find themselves roaming around Baghdad as ghosts, unable to leave: “When an atheist suddenly finds himself walking around after death, he has got some serious reevaluating to do” (26).

Each character has a different relationship with God, struggling to understand where God is in the face of war and suffering. To wrestle with God is to wrestle with the limits of knowledge, and even in the afterlife, God’s intentions remain mysterious. The Tiger pleads with God for a sign and berates God for not speaking; he ultimately decides that if God stands by and does nothing in the face of senseless war and killing, then he as a tiger will accept his own instinct to kill. Kev’s journey is different: He believes in God but initially seems indifferent to God’s presence while alive; following his death, Kev wants to use his newfound skills and understanding for a higher purpose.