Between tradition and liberalism: Identity crises in Henry James's "the ambassadors" and Halide Edib Adivar's "The Clown and His Daughter"

The central concern of this thesis is to explore the different and common ways in which two major novelists, who lived at the turn of the twentieth century, tackled the issue of cultural identity in their semi-autobiographical masterpiece novels, The Ambassadors (1903) and The Clown and His Daughter (1935). American Henry James and Turkish Halide Edib Adıvar are authors with unorthodox educational backgrounds and migrant lives. One is torn between America and ancestral Europe, the other oscillates between modern European and traditional Turkish culture. The duality of their main characters in both novels reflects the authors? own dilemmas. The representations of Europe and the responses of the characters in the two novels are no doubt quite different as the nature of the two cases differs. This study traces how the resolutions suggested by the novelists present another point of divergence between the two in that their main characters respond differently to conflicting forces. James?s protagonist, like the author himself, is able to achieve a synthesis whereas Adıvar?s protagonist, like the author, struggles continuously to place herself in one culture. I argue that the difference in degrees of cultural hybridity has its roots in the novelists? own positions as well as their countries?, which are directly related to the nature of each novelist?s crisis. The problem of East versus West engulfed Adıvar in a more problematic crisis than James?s individual trouble in situating himself between two Western cultures. That is why James explored personal problems (as a forerunner of the modernist movement) while Adıvar worked with socio-political issues. An analysis of these two literary figures from opposite sides of the Atlantic will enhance our assessment of identity crisis regardless of its origin. The two novelists as the forerunners of hybrid identities at the turn of the twentieth century will be investigated with close attention to their attempts to achieve harmony by de/reconstructing their sense of belongings to their cultural heritage. In this respect, Europe is the focus of this study as an inspiration for the countries on its opposing sides.