Female bildungsroman in the Pre-Republican Turkish literature

This thesis examines five novels written between 1896-1922 (Fatma Aliye's Refet and Udi, Halit Ziya's Aşk-ı Memnu, Halide Edib's Handan and Reşat Nuri Güntekin's Çalıkuşu) as female Bildungsromane. The Bildungsroman is a genre that is considered to have a direct relationship to Enlightenment ideals about education and the individual. The conflict between the inner world and the outer reality, between individuality and socialization, and between the private and public spheres constitute some of the essential themes of this genre. Towards the end of the last century scholars started using the term "female Bildungsroman". The female Bildungsroman has generally been considered a genre that relies on conflict and contradiction to a far greater extent than the supposedly linear classical Bildungsroman. Some scholars, however, have raised questions about this differentiation. With the advent of the modernization movements in the Ottoman Empire "youth" was problematized and the education of women gained importance as a prerequisite of modernity. The protagonists of the novels examined in this thesis are young women who gain a certain level of independence through their education. Ultimately, however, this education is expected to turn them into good mothers and wives. In these novels the relationships between women gain great importance and these relationships are generally portrayed as mother-daughter relationships. At the same time, education helps "youth" to stretch and turn into an identity in its own right, instead of solely a period of transition. By adopting "girlhood" as an identity these characters resist gender roles. This results in a fracture in mother-daughter relationships. This is both a form of resistance and a defeat, in that it signifies the break and the lack of communication between generations of women. Here the conflicted nature of the Bildungsroman again becomes apparent. Key Words: Female Bildungsroman, Novel of Formation, Pre-Republican Turkish Novel, Women's Literature