A feminist literary criticism of George Eliot's Mill on the Floss and Halide Edib Adıvar's Sinekli Bakkal through Elaine Showalter's Concept of "Feminine, Feminist, Female"

In this work George Eliot's novel The Mill on The Floss and Halide Edib Adıvar's novel Sinekli Bakkal are analyzed in comparison through feminist literary criticism theory and concept of "feminine, feminist, female" stages in women's literary history which was developed by Elaine Showlater. This study examines how these female writers from different geographies, nationalities and traditions have been influenced by the patriarchal literary tradition. The figures in the two novels are compared according to their characteristics/profile, the changes they have gone through, and their attitudes towwards the patriarhal societ. The features of the works have been also examined through an analysis of the writers' lives. In the theoretical and first part of this study, the meaning of feminism, and it is first appeared in Europe and Ottoman Empire, and the first reflections in the novels have been evaluated. In the second part, George Eliot's biography as a writer of the Victorian period, and the "feminine" elements in her novel Mill in the River Floss, in the third part, the biography of Halide Edib Adıvar and the "feminine" elements in Sinekli Bakkal has been studied. The fourth chapter is about a comparative analysis of the two novels, which is at the same time the aim of this study. Keywords: Feminist Criticism, Feminist Literary Criticism, Elaine Showalter, George Eliot, Halide Edib Adıvar, The Mill on the Floss, Sinekli Bakkal