Ironic criticism and social transformation in Turkish literature

The aim of this study is to make sense of the transformation process by evaluating the selected texts written after the Tanzimat period within the framework of ironic criticism. The works selected to represent the periods of Turkish literature are suitable for clarifying social transformation in terms of their ironic narrative and dichotomy. These fictional texts, which have a strong critical aspect, reflect the transformation process with the cooperation of the author and the reader. Post-Tanzimat texts ironise the corruption in political structure and social life by criticising the bureaucracy and the wrong understanding of Westernisation/modernisation. In time, this attitude turned towards the official ideology that pitted the bureaucracy against the public. In this way, the irony of the emerging semi-intellectual type was used to point to the dissolving bureaucracy and social transformation. The fictional texts, which conveyed that the transformation process with the Republican era progressed in a dichotomy way, also reflected the bivalence of the emerging characters. It is conveyed that the state of division, stuckness and incompatibility seen in the individual himself causes him to be unable to hold on to life, so he goes in search of a quest. In the end, the phenomenon of transformation, which starts with the East/West dichotomy of the Tanzimat period and continues with the dissolution in bureaucracy, social life and the individual, evolves into a process in which "new" people and "new" places are sought. It is seen that fictional texts reflecting the transformation process in Turkish literature evaluate ironic discourse within the framework of the means-end relationship and handle it with a holistic approach.