Representations of "wife" and "whores" by male authors in Turkish theatre after 1980

This study examines the representations of female characters portrayed in the roles of "wife" and "prostitute" in plays written by male playwrights in post-1980 Turkish theatre within the framework of gender theories. The main focus of the study is to analyze the ways in which patriarchal violence is constructed and legitimized through these representations. The dissertation is structured in two main parts. The first part explores women positioned within the context of marriage, focusing on those who are either killed by their husbands or kill their husbands in response to violence. The second part analyzes female representations centered on sexuality, desire, or economic dependency under three sub-themes: women who control, desire, and are punished. In both parts, the study questions how women's subjectivities are suppressed, how they are entrapped in cycles of violence, and how these conditions are legitimized through the discursive structures of patriarchy. The analyses reveal that, although gender awareness significantly increased in Turkey after the influence of second-wave feminism in the 1980s, the female representations in the plays examined within the scope of this dissertation largely remain shaped by traditional norms and masculine narratives. This dissertation aims to offer a critical and original contribution to ongoing debates on representation in both theatre criticism and gender studies by approaching female portrayals in male-authored plays from a gender-based perspective.