Nişantaşi as a life area of the modernization process in the Turkish novel

The social conditions, changes and transformations covered in the novel, the popular circles and life styles of the periods are quite influential in the choice of prominent places in the Turkish novel. Writers specify certain places for the characters of the novels and make apparent in those places the projections of the characters, periods and social situations. The affairs concerning the place determine the novel characters' habits in life, future plans, work life, and marital relationships. For this purpose, writers have carried a good many content, ranging from the type of the house to the arrangements of household goods and indoors, from the social class to the daily life habits, into the fiction in the art of novel. Throughout the period from its foundation till today, Nişantaşı, which has displayed itself as a unique face of luxurious life both for the traditional class and the modern people, has been described as a place for such a function in the Turkish novel. Nişantaşı inhabited mostly by the traditional representatives of the social and economic power in the end of the nineteenth century became in time the place for a life based on economy. Initially the place, which was associated with "konaks" (mansions) where the high bureaucracy led a traditional life, left in time this identity, which was replaced, by commercial bourgeoisie and apartment culture. Our thesis contains the determinations and interpretations of the descriptions of "person, time, and place" in the context of "old/traditional versus new/modern" phenomena. The determinations and interpretations in question are based on the fiction of Nişantaşı by means of sampling method.