Friedrich Dürrenmatt'ın Yaşlı Hanım'ın Ziyareti" ve Haldun Taner'in Gözlerimi Kaparım Vazifemi Yaparım adlı eserlerinde toplumsal eleştiri

The main purpose of the thesis is to research the factors that cause the societies to be sane and/or insane in both plays and to put down the social criticism, which was observed in these plays being departed from these factors. While this thesis is searching for an answer of following question: 'What means society?', it communes with another question: 'What are the symptoms of a sane and/or insane society?'; social criticism is approached with recourse to the humanistic, social psychoanalysis in both modern theatre plays belonging to German Literature written by Friedrich Dürrenmatt who was a witness of Second World War, The Visit and belonging to Turkish Literature written by Haldun Taner who was also a witness of Second World War, Gözlerimi Kaparım Vazifemi Yaparım. This thesis is divided into seven chapters: In the first chapter, it is explained why this plays are analyzed in this thesis. In the second chapter, the term society is focused and the term social criticism is defined related to the term disease. Then, the stage is considered as a laboratory and on the ground of humanistic and social psychoanalysis, it is tried to identify the reasons how the societies are dressed up and what is hidden under masks, like war, crisis etc. In the third chapter, social figures, who are caricatured, are examined in detail. The differences and similarities between both plays are explained; also it is shown how Dürrenmatt and Taner describe their figures, who are caricatured in society on stage. In the fourth chapter, it is dealt with how both dramatists impressed by Brecht use the alienation effect in their plays. It is especially focused upon the alienation of language, the role of music and choruses in plays and the role of narrator, who plays a key role in plays or the figures who take on tasks of narrator. In the fifth chapter, tragic and comedic elements are examined in three basic spaces: world space, theatre space and society space. Basing on these three spaces, it is determined that the figures on stage are portrayed with satire, humor, irony, sometimes with grotesque and sometimes also with paradox and parody. In the sixth chapter, it is dwelled on the question whether the society is sane or insane in the light of epilogue or the act regarded as epilogue. It is explained how the masks of figures in the society are unmasked because of the consequences which are caused to weaken the immune system of a sane society. As a conclusion, it is ascertained in the seventh chapter that the society faced with a war and/or a crisis cannot be defined as sane society, but as long as the society preserves its existence, it can be seen as a normal, reasonable society as it represents all together both sane and insane figures. Key Words: sane/insane society, humanistic psychoanalysis, mirror, theatre, social figures