Theses supervised by Prof. Dr. Mediha Göbenli Koç
13 theses · Yeditepe University
George Eliot'ın Floss Nehrindeki Değirmen romanı ile Halide Edib Adıvar'ın Sinekli Bakkal romanı'nın, Elaine Showalter'ın "Feminen, Feminist, Kadın/Dişi" kavramı üzerinden feminist edebiyat eleştirisi
Bu çalışmada, George Eliot'ın Floss Nehrindeki Değirmen romanı ile Halide Edib Adıvar'ın Sinekli Bakkal romanı karşılaştırmalı olarak feminist edebiyat eleştirisi ekseninde Elaine Showlater'ın kadın edebiyat tarihi için geliştirdiği "feminen, feminist, kadın/dişi" kavramına göre değerlendirilmiştir. Çalışmada farklı coğrafyalarda yetişmiş, farklı millet ve gelenekten iki kadın yazarın, iki ayrı eserini kaleme alırken, patriarkal yazın geleneğinden nasıl etkilendikleri incelenmiştir. İki romandaki karakterler, çizdikleri profil, geçirdikleri değişim ve ataerkil topluma karşı tutundukları tavırlar dikkate alınarak karşılaştırılmıştır. Eserlerin özellikleri, yazarların yaşamları da dikkate alınarak incelenmiştir. Çalışmanın ilk kısmı olan teori bölümünde feminizmin ne anlama geldiği, Avrupa'da ve Osmanlı topraklarında ilk nasıl ortaya çıktığı ve ilk örneklerinin romanlarda nasıl yer bulduğu araştırılmıştır. İkinci kısımda Victoria Dönemi yazarlarından George Eliot'ın biyografisi ve Floss Nehrindeki Değirmen'in 'feminen' unsurları değerlendirilip, üçüncü kısımda ise Halide Edib Adıvar'ın biyografisi ile Sinekli Bakkal'ın 'feminen' unsurları sorgulanmıştır. Dördüncü bölümde çalışmanın amacını oluşturan, iki eserin karşılaştırmalı incelemesi yer almaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Feminist Eleştiri, Feminist Edebiyat Eleştirisi, Elaine Showalter, George Eliot, Halide Edib Adıvar, Floss Nehrindeki Değirmen, Sinekli Bakkal
Bilinç akışı tekniğinin İrlanda ve Türk edebiyatındaki yansımaları
Bu çalışmanın amacı, modern edebiyatta ilk örneklerini verip postmodern edebiyatta doruk noktasına ulaşan "bilinç akışı" tekniğinin tarihsel sürecini iki ülke edebiyatı açısından genetik ve tipolojik karşılaştırma yöntemiyle, dönemsel bir çerçevede ve toplumsal olayları göz önünde bulundurarak incelemektir. Çalışmanın giriş kısmı, bilinç akışı tekniğinin kısa bir tanımından sonra "bilinç" kavramının incelenmesiyle başlayacaktır. "Bilinç" kavramının tarihsel süreçte nasıl anlaşıldığına bakılacak, bununla birlikte gelişen "bilinçaltı" kavramı da irdelenecektir. Sonrasında edebiyatta bilinç akışı tekniğinin uygulanış süreci incelenecek, bu süreci hazırlayan tarihsel olaylara değinilecek; modern edebiyata kadar romanın durumuyla tarihsel gelişiminden bahsedilecek ve bu sürece katkısı olduğu düşünülen birtakım metin örnekleri verilecektir. Çalışmanın ana kısmında, modernist dönemde İrlanda ve Türk edebiyatında bilinç akışı tekniğinin kullanıldığı ilk ürünlerin anlatım teknikleri incelenecektir. Amaç tekniğin tarihsel sürecini incelemek olduğundan, birbirine yakın dönemlerde eser veren iki yazarın, Samuel Beckett'ın Üçleme'si ile Yusuf Atılgan'ın Aylak Adam ve Anayurt Oteli romanları ana odağa alınacaktır. Bu yazarlara değinmeden önce, bu yazarlarla bağdaştırılabilecek ve bilinç akışı tekniğini farklı yöntemlerle kullanmış olan James Joyce ve Oğuz Atay'a değinilecektir. Çalışmada, modernist dönemde Türk edebiyatının İrlanda edebiyatından etkilendiği alanlara ve İrlanda edebiyatının modernist dönemdeki yerine vurgu yapılmaktadır. Anahtar kelimeler: bilinç, akış, İrlanda, Türk, edebiyat, Atılgan, Beckett
Intellectual asymmetrical warfare: (Ab)Use of dystopian literature in Western media and literary circles
Since the masterpiece of Thomas More, Utopia, the concept of a perfectly balanced and harmonious society, has been a concept that took place in both literary works and the political arenas. On the other end of the spectrum, within the first half of twentieth century, the concept of dystopia emerged, not as a reaction to the utopian concept, but more in a way to reflect on the negatives that await the societies in the future in case that the status quo in the eyes of the author continues to be maintained. While the genre of dystopian novel did not receive critical acclaim until the latter half of the twentieth century, it was utilized in ways that are not purely for the sake of art and literature. Specifically, after the Second World War, during the Cold War era, western media noticed the concept of dystopian novel and utilized it in an unprecedented way. While the use of literary works to influence societies have been commonplace since the Roman Empire, this was not for having the audiences to enjoy the work of art, but rather create a monster that haunts people after reading it. This thesis is going to explain how George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four and Yevgeny Zamyatin's We have been discovered by the western ideology and how they are used in order to create a demonic image of the Soviet Union, using the most unconventional methods available at their disposal.
The concept of rememory within magical realism and gothic in Toni Morrison's Beloved and Song of Solomon
This thesis analyzes the concept of rememory in literature and its indications on Toni Morrison's novels Song of Solomon and Beloved. The author's goal is to stand for the realistic portrayal of the blacks in America. Toni Morrison illustrates the real incidents, people, spectres, supernatural characters and abnormal situations. Connecting reasonable stories which are thought as the pictures of her American legacy and supernatural incidents which come from her African culture, the author reflects the real pictures of African Americans from different points of view. The aim of the thesis is to analyze rememory concepts within the functions of magical realism and gothic in Morrison's two novels Beloved and Song of Solomon. The thesis will focus on a comparison between the two novels in terms of rememory through magical realism and gothic. In the first part of the thesis, the definition of rememory is explored. Then, through the theory of postcolonialism, the history of magical realism and gothic are explained. In the second part, the journey of the oppressed history of slavery is scrutinized under the control of the white system. The third part draws attention to the impacts and memories of a painful past by juxtaposing the gothic and magical realism in Toni Morrison's novels, Beloved and Song of Solomon, and focuses on the requirement of keeping these kinds of memories to provide a powerful and cultural black identity in a repressive society, and to heal the past. Finally, this thesis focuses on how and why Morrison uses rememory in her two important works and through magical realism and gothic elements, the reality of African-Americans which is both realistic and fantastic is explored.
Platonic themes in Dame Iris Murdoch's novel The Time of the Angels
This study aims to show Irish philosopher Dame Iris Murdoch's moral arguments and Platonic themes in her novel The Times of Angels. Dame Iris Murdoch firmly believes that human nature should be analyzed in human experience in order to learn ethical values, and furthermore demonstrate the good man in the light of Plato's Form of the Good. According to Iris Murdoch, the notion of will and history are not enough to learn true ethical values. Murdoch firmly believes truth should be discovered by doing philosophy, but moral philosophy should centre the idea of love in order to teach ethics. In the Time of Angels, Murdoch wants to prove that human beings can be saved by love, not by Form of the Good, because the latter cannot be defined. Dame Iris Murdoch's aim is to divulge morality in the light of art and Plato's metaphysical arguments, advocating for re-reading Plato in order to devolop one's understanding of art and literature. Art should not be deemed unimportant, on the contrary it yields truth. Iris Murdoch wants to prove that the enemy of the morality is selfishness and fantasy, not godlessness, and furthermore Murdoch wants to prove that Plato's Form of the Good should not be connected with the idea of God. Murdoch firmly belives that Form of the Good should be above everthing. Moreover, Murdoch wants to picture the good man who manages to look at Plato's Form of the Good, without materializing Form of the Good in The Time of Angels, exposing the possibility of goodness in the absence of God.
Episodic memory and the footprints of cognitive dissonance in William Shakespeare's selected plays
Memory is the vault of moments which determine the present, inspire the future, and create the person we are today. Episodic memory which is a part of the memory system, allows an individual to mentally travel through time towards a particular experience which may be in the past, in the future or it may be a counterfactual situation. On the other hand, cognitive dissonance which is also associated with the mind occurs when a discrepancy is detected between an individual's belief system and behaviour. This study's aim is to analyse the instances of episodic memories and cognitive dissonances in Shakespeare's plays Othello and Hamlet while investigating the correlation of both theories. The study mainly follows Endel Tulving's episodic memory and Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance approaches with a close reading of key moments in the selected plays. In this context, it has been observed that the correlation of episodic memory and cognitive dissonance has an impact on the character's decision-making in the plays Hamlet and Othello.
The authors of the floating world: The concept of death in Ishiguro's a Pale View of Hills and Murakami's Norwegian wood
In his first novel, A Pale View of Hills (1982), Kazuo Ishiguro draws upon post-World War II, trauma, self-deception, guilt and repression through a middle-aged Japanese woman. Whereas Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood (1987) is a nostalgic coming of age story in the 60's Japan which centres around love triangles, loss and sexuality. The-first-person narrative is used in a diary-like manner in these novels. Through the manifestation of repressed memories, both Tōru and Etsuko take the reader on a journey in the past. Although in Norwegian Wood, the characters are surrounded by death, Etsuko's daughter is the only character who commits suicide in A Pale View of Hills. However, both novels share common themes and binary oppositions such as life/death, real/unreal, past/present, East/West and Japaneseness/Englishness. This thesis aims to analyse the concept of death in the selected novels of two contemporary authors of English and Japanese literature through the methodology of comparative reading. The thesis will focus on the similarities and differences of how characters mourn the death of their loved ones along with Ishiguro and Murakami's approaches to death by applying Freudian psychoanalysis. Freud's 1917 essay Mourning and Melancholia will be used in the interpretation of Tōru and Etsuko's coping mechanisms. By applying these discoveries, a comparative reading of A Pale View of Hills and Norwegian Wood will take place. Finally, the thesis will evaluate the ambiguous endings of the novels, as well as mourning process of the characters. Keywords: Freudian psychoanalysis, defence mechanisms, mourning, melancholia, death
Marcel Proust'tan Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar'a bellek yansımaları: Swann'ların Tarafı'ndan Huzur'a Yolculuk
Bu çalışmanın amacı, Marcel Proust'un Swann'ların Tarafı ve Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar'ın Huzur romanlarını bellek ve psikanalizm kuramları çerçevesinde ele alıp her iki roman arasındaki benzerlikleri ve farklılıkları incelemektir. Belirtilen konu bağlamında,bu çalışmada her iki yazarın da Bergson'un Bellek ile ilgili düşüncelerini roman karakterleri üzerinden nasıl hayata geçirdikleri incelenmiştir. Bunun yanı sıra, belleğin insan psikolojisine etkisi üzerinden yola çıkarak, bahsedilen yazarların mezkur romanlarına psikanalitik bir bakış açısı ile yaklaşılmıştır. Bunu yaparken roman yazarlarının kendi hayatlarına yönelip, romanlardaki bazı simgelerin, yazarların belleklerinde hangi hayat anlarına işaret ettikleri tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Swanlar'ın Tarafı ve Huzurromanları üzerine bu incelemeler yapıldıktan sonra bu iki roman ortak olarak taşıdıkları "aşk", "resim" ve "müzik" temalarıaçısından karşılaştırmalı olarak ele alınmıştır. Eserlerdeki Mümtaz ve Swann karakterlerinin benzerlikleri ve farklılıkları mercek altına alınmıştır. Anahtar kelimeler: Huzur, Swann'ların Tarafı, bellek, psikanalizm.
Of Kiel and Catela: The materialist turn in contemporary migration literature
ABSTRACT This study seeks to understand migration literature as a global phenomenon shaped by social, historical and economic factors. Adopting a comparative approach, the paper considers Feridun Zaimoglu's Abschaum alongside Tim Z. Hernandez' Breathing in Dust as works representative of contemporary German-Turkish and Mexican-American migrant literature. Such writers are widely understood in terms of post-structuralist theories such as hybridity. Relying on Aijaz Ahmad's intellectual history of the 20th century and Lucien Goldmann's notion of genetic structuralism, this work seeks to more fully understand the realization of socio-historical factors in migration literature. Both works focus on disenfranchised migrant communities whose labor has become redundant in post-industrial capitalist societies. In foregrounding the socio-economic factors which shape migrants lives each writer renders a critique of dominant discourses surrounding immigration and the status of immigrants in each nation. Abschaum critiques the German criminal justice system and liberal human rights discourse of the German state as a whole, making explicit fundamental contradictions which underlie the Gastarbeiter program. Breathing in Dust not only narrates the history of discrimination and oppression of Chicano/a labor migrants as a means of subverting normative American notions of equality and freedom, but also critically engages the cultural nationalist ideology of Chicanismo by making explicit the trend which unites these works – their assertion of the status of migrants being a product of socio-economic and historical factors over the primarily cultural view of migration advocated by post-structuralist theories.
Erhan Bener'in Yalnızlar adlı eseri ile Heinrich Böll'ün Palyaço adlı eserinin yabancılaşma bağlamında karşılaştırılması
Bu çalışmada, birbirinden tamamen ayrı iki ülkede farklı kültürlerle yaşayan ancak hayat deneyimleri birbirine oldukça benzer iki yazarın iki ayrı romanı yabancılaşma olgusu çerçevesinde incelenmiştir. Çalışmada Türk edebiyatı yazarı Erhan Bener'in Yalnızlar adlı romanı ile Alman edebiyatı yazarı Heinrich Böll'ün Palyaço adlı romanında yabancılaşma olgusunun işleniş tarzı, bu olgunun olaylar ve durumlar karşısındaki ele alınış biçimi, roman kahramanlarının yaşadıkları toplumda yabancılaşma olgusunun hangi türüne ne şekilde maruz kaldıkları ve sonuçta nelerin yaşandığı eserlerden verilen örnekler dahilinde karşılaştırılarak incelenmiştir. Türk gelenek ve kültürü ile büyüyen Erhan Bener ile Alman gelenek ve kültürü ile büyüyen Heinrich Böll'ün yaşadıkları ve kendilerini ait hissettikleri toplumda savaş, geçim sıkıntısı, zorluk, göç gibi olaylara maruz kalmaları, kaleme aldıkları eserlerde işledikleri konuların yaşamlarından birer parça sunmalarına yol açmıştır. Ele alınan iki ayrı eser de yazarların yaşamlarından büyük kesitler sunmaktadır. Bu bağlamda, çalışmada yalnızca eserlerdeki yabancılaşma olguları tespit edilmemiş, iki ayrı yazarın yaşam hikayelerine ve yaşadıkları toplumun yapılarına da yer verilmiştir. İnceleme üç bölümden oluşmaktadır: birinci bölümünde yabancılaşma kavramına, bu kavramın farklı dillerdeki kullanımı ile kelime kökenine, kavramın kendi alanında başarılı olan farklı düşünür ve yazarlar tarafından yapılan geniş tanımına ve yabancılaşma olgusunun tür ve faktörlerine dair ayrıntılı bilgi verilmiştir. İkinci bölümde Türk ve Alman edebiyatında yabancılaşma olgusunun gelişim çizgisine, iki ayrı edebiyatta ürün veren yazarların eserlerinde yabancılaşma olgusunu ne şekilde işlediklerine karşılaştırma esasına dayanılarak yer verilmiştir. Bu bölümde ele alınan romanlar ile bağlantılı olduğu düşünülerek Erhan Bener ile Heinrich Böll'ün yaşam hikayelerine, eğitim ve edebi hayatlarına yer verilmiştir. Çalışmanın son bölümü olan üçüncü bölümde ise iki ayrı eser Erich Fromm, Karl Marx, Melvin Seeman ve Jean-Paul Sartre'ın yabancılaşma hususundaki düşünceleri doğrultusunda ve dört ayrı kategoriye ayrılan yabancılaşma olgusu çerçevesinde karşılaştırılmıştır.
The idea of "fallen" woman: a feminist reading of ElizabethGaskell's Ruth and Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'urbervilles
This study aims to compare the idea of a "fallen" woman in two novels, Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell and Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, in the light of feminist literary criticism. As the social structure of Victorian England was rather patriarchal, the men precisely held power and determined the discourse. The label of "fallen" or "ruined" woman created in this context was an expression used for women who had got beyond the moral boundaries. In this study, the internal and external conflicts of the "fallen" female protagonists of the novels mentioned above and their attempts to exist in the society after being abandoned or raped by men have been examined in a comparative and detailed manner. In these novels, in which gender and class distinctions are at the forefront, male characters create physical and psychological pressure on female characters by misusing their gender and the social class they belong to. Despite these pressures, female characters who are never morally corrupted, have great difficulty in maintaining their struggle for existence within society because they are excluded. Eventually, they become the victims of the prejudices and hypocrisy of the Victorian English society in the nineteenth century. Keywords: Feminism, Fallen Woman, Gender Discrimination, Gender Conflicts, Women Studies, Patriarchal Society, Victorian Era, Comparative Literature
The conflicts of women in literature, politics and relationships: A comparative reading of The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing and A Strange Woman by Leyla Erbil
This dissertation presents a comparative study of two novels, written in the twentieth century by two female authors from different cultures and countries, in the light of feminist literary criticism. These novels are The Golden Notebook by English novelist, Doris Lessing, and A Strange Woman, by Lessing's Turkish contemporary, Leyla Erbil. In the first part, feminist literary criticism in Europe is presented in detail, regarding the female experience of literature, relations with other people and politics focusing mostly on Elaine Showalter's point of view. Then, a brief summary of feminist theory in Turkey is given. In the main part of the work, these two novels are compared and contrasted. The experiences of the two female protagonists in literature, relationships and politics are analysed. It can be demonstrated that these educated, skilful and economically independent women are dedicated to rebel against social conventions, which do not offer a place for them, and that they pay for this rebellion with fragmented lives and selves. It is highly interesting to find that two novelists from different countries and cultural backgrounds have written similar novels, dealing with the women's question, and that they adopt a similar style and approach. Moreover, while a free, adult woman has been portrayed in The Golden Notebook, a young lady in pursuit of freedom, with a mother who eagerly accepts male dominance, has been depicted in A Strange Woman. Therefore, these two novels present the emancipation process of women with differing points of view. Hence, this work is intended to offer a comprehensive study of two novels, dealing with the personal and social experiences of twentieth century feminists in England and Turkey.
Visual and artistic representations of contemporary wars in Double Vision's pastoral context
In the light of Pat Barker's Double Vision (2003), based on the narrative's pastoral construct, this study aims to explore the representative forms of pains of others depicted through visual media, photography, art within the context of twentieth-century wars in Iraq, Bosnia and Afghanistan, and to investigate how the protagonists deal with ethical consequences of witnessing and showing others' pains. The pastoral space and pastoral mode of the narrative, which reverberate death and destruction of wars, prove that the narrative's pastoral is not an Arcadian construct providing an escape from the rigors of wars. On the contrary, as the theoretical framework, the pastoral equips the narrative with an ethical approach that reveals the realities of war and the sufferings of humanity. Barker's pastoral construct emerges as the basic constituent that embodies vulnerability, mortality of humanity and trauma. Further, the pastoral methodology corresponds to the protagonists' moral attitudes towards visual and artistic representations of violence and suffering, for the reason that both perspectives intend to reach the truth of the issue of seeing others' pains and aftermaths of war. As a protest against the anesthetizing effect of excessive image-flow in mass media, the protagonists' personal and artistic responses to visual images; photographs of war and violence have become a substitution for pastoral lament. That way, artistically and ethically oriented protagonists honor those who have suffered and lost their lives during wars, but their pains were left unrecognized. Key words: Literature and War, Pastoral, Pastoral Mode, Visual Representations, War Photography, Art, Ethics