Antihero in Turkish novel of the Republic period (1950-1980)

Novel, which is a modern literary genre, is not convenient for containing the traditional hero model, ancient boundries and principles, in terms of shaping around the problematic individual. In the world of novel, hero's ideal qualities, victorious identity and cyclical life become deformed. The reflection of factors such as changing living conditions with modernization, perceptions of time and reality, relationship of an individual with society and the state, urbanization and the rise of the public sphere, the idea of deterritorialization and the psychology caused by the atmosphere of war, manifests itself in the way of the protagonists taking on antihero features such as failure, alienation, lack of identity, lack of communication, and powerlessness in novel. In this study, the formation, development and characteristics of antihero in Turkish novel of the Republic period (1950-1980) will be tried to be revealed. In the first and second parts of our thesis, which consists of four parts, the transformations in the concept of hero since the mythological periods and the effects of the modernization process on the formation of antihero will be described. In the third chapter, the conceptual framework of antihero, the characters and types that it feeds on, its variations, personality traits, its place in the fiction will be determined, and the examples of world literature that affect Turkish novel will be examined. The evolution of antihero in Turkish novel will first be examined in general terms from Tanzimat to the year of 1950, and then its course between 1950 and 1980 will be evaluated. The fourth chapter is devoted to a detailed examination of the protagonists, who are antiheroes, in twenty novels, which we think will enable us to see the concept in the most clear and inclusive way, selected among the novels that were first published between 1950 and 1980. Keywords: Turkish Novel, Antihero, Hero, Protagonist, Modernization