Democracy as a Theatre of Deception in Kevin Powers’ The Yellow BirdsHemn Qadir Mahmood

Abstract

In comparison to other systems, a real democracy can be regarded as a
better governing system. The study draws connections between political
science and fiction to investigate democratic ideals and critically examines
the portrayal of democracy as a theatre of deception in Kevin Powers‘ The
Yellow Birds (2012) through the lens of postcolonial theory, particularly
Derek Gregory's The Colonial Present (2004). The study will examine how
this contemporary American war novel depicts the concept and how it has
been used as a theatre to mislead the public view through a close reading of
the text. Additionally, the study examines how democratic and humanitarian
principles have been corrupted during the Iraq War by US military forces for
the sake of keeping America‘s interests, its colonial ambitions, and political
agenda. Furthermore, the paper aims to support all the analysed ideas,
arguments and findings through reference to scholars, critics, researches,
scholarly articles, politicians and leaders to give more reliability to the work.
Key words: The Yellow Birds, The Colonial Present, Democracy,
Deception, War fiction, Iraq war.