The female exploration in a patriarchal society as reflected in Virginia Woolf's 'The Voyage Out' and Halide Edip-Adivar's 'Handan'

The present thesis examines the female explorations and the emergence of `new women identity? in patriarchal Victorian and Ottoman societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by focusing on Virginia Woolf?s The Voyage Out and Halide Edip-Adıvar?s Handan. The two novels are analyzed and evaluated by putting the feminist approach and the mental attitudes appropriate to the historical contexts of the mentioned periods in the centre.The first chapter points to the social transformations in Victorian England and Ottoman Empire concerning `the new women identity?. Moreover, the psychoanalytic theories related to the construction of gender roles and identity acquisition process are emphasized to clarify better the relationship between women and men.In the second chapter, the personal life stories and women perceptions of Virginia Woolf and Halide Edip-Adıvar are studied in details by making a comparative analysis in order to form a sound basis for the evaluation and analysis of the novels in terms of new and independent female identity explorations in patriarchal societies.In the last chapter of the thesis, the precedent novels of the writers, The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf and Handan by Halide Edip-Adıvar, are compared and examined through the feminist psychoanalytic approach to show the existential struggles and the self-identity explorations of women in their patriarchal societies.At the end of the thesis, it is concluded that the patriarchal system and its dictates based on religion and moral values play an important role in the female identity formation process, and set a bar against women in their search to gain their self-esteems and independent women identities. Naturally, it is also seen that Virginia Woolf and Halide Edip-Adıvar, as being women and writers having been brought up in such kinds of patriarchal societies, are not able to become free from the social, political and ethic influences of their eras, which affects the subjective experience and female creativity shaping their literary works.