Disclosure of patriarchy in Leylâ Erbil and Pınar Kür's works: A feminist psychoanalytic reading

This thesis aims to examinethemarginalization of women in the works of two prominent women writers of Turkish literature, namely Leylâ Erbil and Pınar Kür, by making use of Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection. These writers examine the patriarchalsystem and its institutions in their works and provide a powerful and sharpcritique ofthe male dominated society with which they have had firsthand experience. In the theoretical chapter of this thesis, Kristeva's theory is introduced. In the following chapters, the selected works of these writers are analyzed within the framework of Kristeva's model of the abject. Both authors, although unwittingly, use abjection in their writings to reveal the exclusion of women in patriarchal society. These chapters investigate their works psychoanalytically, focusing on the male fear of female body and sexuality and analyzing the mechanisms patriarchy uses to exclude womenand the practices of exclusion in gendered spaces.