Woman and education of woman in Halide Edip Adıvar's novels

Halide Edip Adıvar reflected the social and political issues,that she was closely interested, to her works with a critical and analytic point of view during the period of twenty-four years (1909-1963) in which she had written twenty-one novels. In addition to her work such as novel,story and drama Halide Edip played an important role in Turkish Literature with her memoirs,essays,articles and columns. She also became very influential educationalist woman writer with the ability to pinpoint the things and the thesis she suggested and she wrote her novels to advocate the thesis defending West and East synthesis.As a woman writer, Halide Edip focused on the problems of women and the viewpoint of society on women; she dealt with the women characters with the idea of `thesis-antithesis-synthesis?in her mind by analizing the reflections of the westernization and modernization on women?s identity. As she was presenting the traditional Ottoman women as a `thesis? she put forward the Western women as `antithesis?. Meanwhile, she, had already known both Europe and America very well, had chance to know many Western women closely and she illustrated `antithesis? in two types: `positive and negative antithesis?.Traditional women imitated the Western women and endeavoured to take them as a model which as a result made `occidental women? appear as a `negative antithesis?. The critisizing attitude towards the occidental women she took almost in all of her novels became much harsher after the women impressions she had from Anatolia during the armistice.In the result of taking the positive Western women as a model and weighing and adopting cultural values of West without the notion of imitation we met the writer?s ideal `new woman? model. This `new woman? who is well-cultured, strong, socially sensitive means a character who is able to make the synthesis of West and East and undertake a leading role in Turkey?s future-just like the writer introduced as an epitome in her works.The writer used this `thesis-antithesis-synthesis? evaluation as a guide to determine the positions of the women in society,their apperance, their education level and their style, in paralel to characters of the women.Positions of the women in a family,their expectations from marriage and problems with their husbands are surely shaped with the effect of the case of conflict and break-up in individuals? psychology which the sociologically evaluated identity chaos causes.In the same way, it?s also the writer?s thesis that the women should have a strong feeling of responsibility for the people around them,for their nation or for their country and they should dedicate themselves to these values and all the women the writer idealizes have these characteristics.The way the women dress was one of the most significant indicators to reveal the women?s inclinations and which ideal woman profile they?re most likely to approve -traditional/occidental-. The writer also gives meanings to the clothing of the women she presented as a model or the ones she disapproved. She had taken the changes in the society into consideration throughout her literary life and she had reconsidered her ideal style of clothing in some ways. However, she never had a formalist approach.The writer who inquired about the education the women received including the content as well, endeavoured to put forward ideal understanding of education for women by using her educational side and experiences. Halide Edip, who has the thought of necessity of synthesizing cultural values of East and West also in education, believes that it?s necessary to increase schooling and the girls from every walk of life should have a chance to benefit from it. The writer?s novels are mostly aiming to change the common misconception in the society that the girls need not to go to school or even it?s inconvenient for girls to go to school.Halide Edip Adıvar had not only put forward the positive and negative sides of the women types which she?d chosen from every walk of life but also presented various model women for them to take as a model. To sum up, in her works the writer reflected the experiences throughout the modernization and westernization period using the characters and lives of the women.Keywords: Halide Edip Adıvar, education of woman, synthesis of West and East.