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Analyzing and comparing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland within the frame of feminism and vegetarianism
Women have been struggling for equality with men for a long time. They demand to have a right to vote, get education, to be free of social norms. According to the needs of certain periods, feminism, aims to change the fate of women. Women are oppressed and objectified by patriarchy in most societies. Feminist and animal rights advocate Carol J. Adams emphasizes that not only women, but also animals are objectified and killed by patriarchy. Cultural Ecofeminists asserts that the violence against these groups and nature are same and it will continue unless patriarchy stops claiming its superiority. In this regard, some ideologies like ecofeminism, cultural feminism and cultural ecofeminism are analyzed. Writers like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Mary Shelley are dissatisfied about this violence and long for equality for all beings. In Gilman's novel Herland and Shelley's Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus indicate some features of ecofeminism and cultural feminism. Therefore, this study aims to examine how patriarchy tend to be violent and what these writers want to see in society. Key Words: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mary Shelley, Carol J. Adams, feminism, ecofeminism, cultural ecofeminism
The interplay between racism and feminism: Black feminism and Toni Morrison's 'Paradise'
Toni Morrison's novel Paradise provides a vivid picture of patriarchy and racism. The novel is surrounded with crucial symbols in connection with race and gender. The novel takes place in Ruby near Oklahoma. It is a small town where only black men hold the authority and manipulate the system according to their interests.In terms of identity there is no separate concept for women in the novel. They have to obey all the rules which are expected by men. On the other hand, There is a place which is known as Convent near Ruby. The women who live in Convent trigger the hatred and anger of those men against women in general because they think that they can not control the women as they control their wives. The women in Convent show their identities bravely and freely. Therefore, it menaces the absolute authority of men. The concept of strong women and how merciless men can be If the authority is taken from them, are emphasized with the help of Convent thematically.Actually, from the very beginning to the end, Toni Morrison draws the picture of difficulties women have to deal with. The richness of the novel stems from the thematic elements intimately linked to the language and discourse intertwined with racism and patriarchy. The way she uses the language and the events that take place provide different perspectives on these issues non-chronologically. There is a striking interplay between past and present in connection with inequalities in terms of gender and race. Actually, Morrison tries to show that the underlying reason of segregation is not closely linked to race or gender. The aim of this study is to analyze the thematic elements and their relations to the interplay between racism and feminism known as Black Feminism and as a conclusion how concepts of race and gender are used to hide interests stemming from political and economic reasons are explained in the light of literature review. In the study, as data collection method, the thematic analysis has been used to explain the content according to themes.
The representations of the archetypal Jew in Christopher Marlowe's Jew of Malta and William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
William Shakespeare is one of the most popular authors, not only in England but worldwide. He was greatly influenced by his contemporary Christopher Marlowe. The similarity is witnessed in their themes, motifs, devices, and plots. During my research, these two writers' works respectively The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Malta, are first broadly compared in order to explore the various differences and specific embellishment that each author adds and later closely examining their main characters, namely Barabas and Shylock in order to deconstruct the Jewish archetype. The following paper aims to also elaborately examine the archetypes, treatment, status, rights and the connotations revolved around Jews starting from Medieval literature, tracing its metamorphic progress through Renaissance and Victorianism till Modernism. An elaboration on the metamorphoses of the Jewish archetypal characters, previously recognised as stubborn, malicious, villain and hatred by God to the modernist alienated Jew striving to find his authentic identity in a socially constructed environment facing ambiguous personality threat, will also be encountered. Specifically, this paper analyses both authors' artistic recreations and embellishments of the archetype Jew as a satire on anti-Semitism.
Examining David Greig's plays in terms of post-colonialism
Postcolonial studies are one of the areas that have been on the rise since the Second World War. The source of these works is literary and cultural studies. One of the starting point elements of postcolonial studies is the situation of the victims. Rather than being interpreted from the eyes of the West, the events that have taken place are intended to be reflected from the eyes of the countries that have gained independence through the process of decolonization. The countries covered by these studies are usually Third World countries such as Asia and Africa. Although the decolonization processes of newly independent countries have been discussed in these studies, the United States is one of the countries covered in this field. The reason for this is that the end of the colonial period is effective. The postcolonial works also address the spiritual fatigue of nations, racism they are subjected to, the problems of identity, the pressures they are subjected to, the material situation of the people and the discrimination. It contributes to the explanation of all these problems by going to the root. 20. century. in the light of postcolonial studies, which have gained importance since the middle, racism activities started with slavery in American societies connected to internal colonialism, African Americans identity problems and civil rights are acquired through some famous works. One of the names that feature postcolonialism in his works is David Greig. This is clearly seen in works like "Europes, Damascus". Greig, who deals with the philosophical, psychological, literary and sociological situations that colonialism left behind, includes the exploited countries and the people living in these countries with a postcolonial ecocritical perspective.
Wolf in a Sheepskin or a Sheep in a Wolfskin?: A comparative archetypal analysis of the Gothic Doppelgangers of Victorian, Dorian Gray, Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde, and the Invisible Man
This thesis aims to prove the need for a new doppelganger concept and to form the framework of the new doppelganger concept via a comparative archetypal analysis of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and H.G. Well's The Invisible Man by using Victorian Age's unique features as parameters. In order to use archetypal analysis effectively, the origins and historical progress of collective unconscious and archetypes are investigated thoroughly. This thesis reveals the relation between Victorian Age and Gothic literature, since the literary works of Victorian Age to be analysed belong to Gothic genre, after it provides background information about the origins and historical progress of Doppelganger concept, and a detailed introduction of Victorian Age. The unique qualities of Victorian Age, the monstrosity and society, male dominance and masculinity, and Victorian morality and the pursuit of hedonism are utilised as parameters to analyse the aforementioned Victorian literary works. To sum up, this thesis is an attempt to prove the need of a new Gothic doppelganger concept unique to Victorian Age via a comparative archetypal analysis including the parameters aforementioned, and to form the framework of Victorian Gothic doppelganger concept.
The impact of digital creative writing on academic writing achievement and motivation at tertiary level
Writing skills have always been challenging for teachers and students both in the native and foreign languages. Students worry about starting and organizing their ideas, whereas teachers have trouble motivating their students towards writing skills. When the quality of the written product is not at the desired level, students feel anxious which is one of the biggest problems in the writing process. To overcome challenges and be more beneficial to learners in this process, innovative and promising methods should be integrated into the writing curriculum. It is globally accepted that technology has a significant influence and becomes omnipresent in every process of our lives. As technology advances, it has made an immense breakthrough in communication and the education system. It has provided an opportunity to gain individual experiences of informal language acquisition in a virtual environment and promote learner autonomy that increases learners' motivation and leads them to become lifelong learners. Thus, this experimental study investigates the evaluation of B2 level creative writing ability based upon using web 2.0 tools on a digital platform. The study aims to identify and explore the effect of digital creative writing on English Preparatory School students' writing skills, attitudes, and expectations towards writing. The study took place at a foundation university, the School of Foreign Languages in Turkey. 66 students in the B2 level participated in this research. Two groups that were equivalent to each other were chosen as experimental and control groups. Data were collected through final writing skills quizzes, the adaptation of the Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test to Turkish developed by Özbay and Zorbaz (2011), pre-test and post-test, creative writing rubric developed by the researcher. After obtaining data from participants who attended the study, attitudes, expectations, motivation, and writing proficiency were analyzed. The results indicated that digital creative writing not only improved academic writing achievement but also helped increase the writing motivation of the students. Finally, after attaining findings and results, some pedagogical recommendations were given for target groups. Key Words: Creativity, Creative Writing, Educational Technologies, Writing Apprehension
Representation of the anthropocene epoch in Doris Lessing's Mara and Dann: An Adventure and the Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog
The Anthropocene is a major concern in the twenty-first century. It highlights the human interference to nature and clarifies how human beings destroy the living and non-living things and what consequences can generate due to this interference. Doris Lessing, who is passionate about creating an image of the forthcoming disasters because of the intervention of a human, is one of the pioneer authors of the Anthropocene. In her works, Mara and Dann: An Adventure and its sequel The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and The Snow Dog are the representatives of the post-apocalyptic world in the near future. Plots in both novels are set in the distant future and the characters in the novels suffer from the mistakes made by their ancestors. This study aims at demonstrating how the Anthropocene is described through the novels, what effects demonstrate on humanity. Throughout the novels, it is obvious that the author has managed to exhibit us that human beings will continue to suffer from their mistakes until they learn how to control their reactions towards nature.
Anti odipus figür olarak Tristram Shandy
Tristram Shandy is one of the most discussed novels in English language literature since the day it was written. For instance, at the time of its writing; Samuel Johnson, one of the most distinguished names in English literature, was skeptical of this work. He thought that nothing awkard would be permanent. Similarly, contemporary critics of Sterne found his novel to be strange, unusual, and unsuccessful in terms of unconventional narrative techniques. In contrast, Tristram Shandy has still inspired many literary theories, post-modern narrative technique and anti-hero examples, despite more than two centuries since the day it was written. Long before postmodern literary criticism, Sterne problematized the mimetic reality, the myth of integrity, linearity, and the archetype of the hero's journey that the odipal hero completes to reach inheritance, law, and phallus. He has presented a successful parody. Using Don Quixote and other bildungsroman hero parodies, he presented a satirical collage. He glorified the hero's grotesque image of the body, the plane of immanence beyond the self, and the body without organs against the Father's obsession with completeness and perfection. In this context, Tristram Shandy is not disciplined by imperfection, loss, and lack, on the contrary, as a meta-reflexive hero who is aware of his fictional reality, he without hesitation deciphering his fictionality. As a result, Tristram Shandy is a parody, an anti-odipal hero who has been against the concept of hero-subject under the burden of objectification and of guilt and odipal ideals. Keywords: Tristram Shandy, Sterne, Anti-odipal, postmodern literary
Media shaping identity in post-colonial context in Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Dans Zamanı, bir roman olarak, okuyucusunu kullanılan dil vasıtası ile yaşanabilecek her çeşit insani tecrübeyi değerlendirip bunlar üzerine konuşabileceği bir alana davet eder. Bildungsroman içerisinde yer alan en büyük faktör olan Kişilik Gelişim Süreci‟ni, insanlara sömürgecilik sonrası ve postmodern dönem bakış açısıyla ilgili teorilerden faydalanarak çok iyi yansıtır. Zadie Smith‟in ikinci en büyük uğraş odağı olan görecelik kavramı ise roman tarafından okuyucusunun tarafına yansıtılır. Roman gelişme sürecini okuyucusuna öyle bir şekilde sunar ki; okuyucu hiçbirşeyin aslında mutlak betimleme biçimiyle sunulmadığı izlenimine kapılır ve bu da kesinlik sınırlarının genişlemesine sebebiyet verir. Bu nedenden dolayı, karakterlerin bazılarının sahip olduğu Melezlik, Kişilik Bölünmesi ve Taklitçilik gibi kolonileşme sonrası dönemin bakış açısı ve terimlerini kapsayan ortak özellikleri beraberinde onlara belirli bir yere ait olamama hissiyatını da getirir. Bu ait olamayış duygusu sadece karakterlerin kendi ruhsal alemlerinde ve zihinlerinde bir savaş yaşamalarına sebep olmaz, aynı zamanda da okucuya şu soruyu edebi sınırlar çerçevesinde yöneltir: „‟Kim olduğumuza bakıldığında, ya da kim olamayacağımız bize başkaları tarafından söylendiğinde, hatta ve hatta kim olabileceğimizi hayal ettiğimizde, ait olduğumuz yerin yolunu nasıl buluruz?‟‟ Bu soru kendi içerisinde çözümlenebilmesi durumunda, okuyucusuna romanda karakterlerin verdikleri kararları sebeplerini apaçık bir şekilde ortaya çıkartarak, bu kararların onları nereye götürdüğüyle beraber, yaptıkları bu yolculuğun sonunun gerçekte onları ait oldukları yere götürüp götürmediğine de odaklanır. Ve yazar ise bu çalışmayı yine bu karakterlerin bütün bu özelliklerini ortaya çıkarmak amacıyla sunmuştur. Anahtar Kelimeler: Bildungsroman, Melezlik, Taklitçilik, Zadie Smith, Sömürgecilik Sonrası, Postmodernizm
Hamlet in a Nutshell: McEwan's novel Nutshell as a postmodern rewriting
As a postmodern rewriting of Shakespeare's one of the most essential plays, Nutshell narrates the story of an unborn baby whose parents go through the same tragedy as Hamlet's did. Hamlet has been examined mainly under the light of Freudian studies, regarding the issue of Oedipus Complex which can also be observed in Nutshell. It is fundamental to delve into the relationship between the mother and the protagonist of each of the works to compare them in terms of the complicated feelings and motivations. While doing so, the references to the senses should be surveyed closely since they play a very important role in communication. Because, the lack of the sense of sight would be affecting the connection between the characters and bring a new dimension to the story especially when the protagonist happens to be an unborn baby in Nutshell. Since women characters step forth due to their significance in both works, their conditions ought to be reviewed to comment on how they are represented and treated and whether they are affected by male domination in any way. This paper thus aims to examine all the mentioned concerns under certain subtitles, relating them to Hamlet and Nutshell while spotting the similarities and differences. Key Words: Hamlet, Oedipus Complex, Freud, Nutshell, Postmodernism
The Persephone myth as a reflection of mother-daughter relationship in Louis de Bernierès' novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Captain Corelli's Mandolin is among the most famous postmodern novels reconstructing some of the mythemes of the Persephone myth, such as the heroine's descent into the underworld and the heroine's dominance by intelligence. At the centre of this study lies the representation of the characters Pelagia and Drosoula as Persephone and Demeter figure. While the author presents the characters of his novel, he deconstructs the structure of Persephone myth, like the heroine's assertion of intelligence, sovereignty and victory in each attempt and revives the mythemes once more. The aim of this study is to draw attention to Carl Jung's one of most famous concepts: archetype. Another aim is to retell and discuss the Persephone myth in relation to de Bernierès' work. In this respect, one of the significant intentions is to take Demeter and Drosoula as mother archetypes and analyse in relation to myth and novel and discuss the heroine's monomythic journey.
Daniel Defoe'nun Moll Flanders ve Namık Kemal'in İntibah romanlarında günahkar kadın temsilleri
Gender studies emerged in the 1980s and 1990s and gender began to be discussed in greater detail in academia. Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field focusing on women, gender identity, and representations in general. Women who live in patriarchal societies and are exposed to unfair attitudes have begun to think about their identity, purposes in their life, expectations from life, and their status in community. Society determines whether a woman is moral and immoral. This thesis examines fallen women representations, their features and their literary, religious, and historical backgrounds by providing literary and mythological examples. Mahpeyker is a fallen woman character in the novel İntibah which Namık Kemal wrote in 1876 and is one of the first example of Turkish novel that shows how fallen women are viewed by the society. To understand fallen women's point of view, Moll, a fallen woman character in the novel Moll Flanders, which Daniel Defoe wrote in 1722, was examined. This thesis explores how and why a woman is called a fallen or femme fatale by male-oriented societies in literary works.
The myth of Loki revised in the Gospel of Loki and Loki: Where mischief lies
Rewriting myths existed since Renaissance and it is still a popular practice today. Especially in a postmodernist sense, rewriting aims to give voice to the other, to the slighted, marginalised characters. Therefore Loki as the god who is not worshipped and as the villain among the gods who brings apocalypse known as Ragnarok, finds the opportunity to be a hero in the contemporary literature. Also known as the trickster god, Loki possesses the qualities of a universal figure that is the trickster; he plays tricks, he deceives and lies, he brings chaos, however, he gains more human characteristics and moves away from being a primitive character whose only goal is to satisfy his selfish needs. Loki has his own thoughts and feelings expressed in depth and he becomes the hero in a society where binary oppositions and strict categorisation is rejected.
The young adult as a savior in the dystopian novel Divergent by Veronica Roth
In this study, the place and importance of dystopia in young adult literature, which is very popular today, is explained. The purpose and consequences of reflecting children in young adult literature as saviors in this genre of literature were discussed. The reader is given the opportunity to think and question whether the children who are now enslaved by technology can take on the role of saviors in the possibly terrible future that awaits us. In the dystopian fiction, brainwashing, mind control, fear, torture, death and resistance, and the government's pressure and understanding of discipline are explained in detail. The fact that this kind of society causes a trauma on young adults, the hero's journey of self-discovery by establishing connections between the past and the future thanks to the traumatic experiences he also had in his childhood were investigated with Veronica Roth's book Divergent. These themes are discussed by considering the heroic journey of the main heroine Beatrice Prior, who plays the role of savior in the novel Divergent, which is an example of dystopia in young adult literature.
Revising the heroic tandem in Louis de Bernieres' Captain Corelli's Mandolin
This study has a modest and limited aim to describe the flexibility of the heroic concept, images of the heroic tandem and phenomena of masculinity, gender issues and sentiment which are to be found throughout Louis de Bernieres' novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Louis de Bernieres' novels are quite complex and notewothy to analyze in relation to myth. Considering the novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin, it can be said that it is a work which handles myth as a medium in order to demonstrate and question psychological dilemmas and human existence in a postmodern world. In the view of fact that Carlo Piero Guercio, Captain Corelli and Pelagia are presented as hero and heroines in the contemporary world. The concept of the gender is also vital aspect in the novel in order to explain the heroism concept in the novel. In this respect the novelist opens various gates in order to re-think myths in an original way. Therefore, he plays with the mythical stories, he deconstructs and then reconstructs them in the way of thinking contemporary understanding of heroism. Accordingly, his main aim is to show how new meanings occur in the eyes of contemporary people. From this point of view, this study displays the importance of heroic tandems and how their relationships are in the past and revised versions of heroic tandems in a postmodern work Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
Anthropomorphism in animal rights movement and fiction in the 19th and early 20th century
Elizabeth Phelps and Anna Sewell wanted to give their readers a new perspective by writing about animals, and they were successful. Anna Sewell's Black Beauty is a novel that recounts the autobiographical journey of a horse, the various forms of violence the human race endured during this journey, and the love he received from the human race directly from Beauty's mouth. Sewell chooses a horse as the protagonist because he is a writer who witnessed animal persecution in the 19th century first hand. In addition, the fact that he was injured as a child and his walking ability diminished drew him closer to horses; by providing horse-drawn transportation, she both sympathised with them and wished to convey this sentiment of empathy to children. Today, animal cruelty is no longer limited to individuals and a few animal owners. The scientific community continues to conduct animal experiments from the past. The novel Trixy, A Novel by Elizabeth Phelps is about an illegal lab for animal experiments and experimental animals. Trixy and Caro, the protagonists, are kidnapped and sold as experimental animals. The owner of Caro, Miriam, sues the laboratory and her lover, who works there and whom she wishes to marry. Elizabeth communicates all facets of love to the reader. What must be true of love? The text intersects between animal love, human love, and doctor and professional love. In this love triangle, the reader learns of the struggle of a woman who sacrificed her passion for animal rights. In both works, the authors could transcend their time and influence the present. Even so, illegal animal experiments continue, and animal torture is prevalent in all societies. Unfortunately, existing laws and institutions are insufficient to prevent this persecution.
Narcissistic mother figure in Sons and Lovers By D.H. Lawrence and the Piano teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
This study examines narcissistic mother figures in Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence and The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek. In this work, a narcissistic parent and a narcissistic individual are described. In addition, the problematic behaviors of narcissistic mothers are outlined in this thesis. Clearly, narcissistic mothers have dysfunctional relationships with their children. Because they believe themselves to be superior and lack empathy. As a result of this belief, it is acknowledged that narcissistic feelings contribute to chaos between adults and children. This research is composed of two chapters and uses the textual analysis methodology. The first chapter discusses narcissism, the narcissistic parent-child relationship, the Oedipus complex, Lacan's concepts of objet petit a and jouissance, the description of a narcissistic mother, and narcissism in literature. The second chapter uses the narcissistic mother figure to compare the novels Sons and Lovers and The Piano Teacher. This study examines the literary reflections of narcissism using terminology pertinent to the concept. In addition, the effects of narcissistic mothers on their children of different genders in literature, the definitions of narcissistic mothers in literary works, and the differences in parental feelings among narcissistic individuals are investigated.
Intertextual and self-referential elements as narrative strategies in Ian McEwan's fiction
Contemporary English novelist, Ian McEwan's fiction is marked with intertextuality and self-referentiality. This study aims to analyze McEwan's narrative fiction regarding intertextual and self-referential elements, elucidating how they help with the narrative discourse produced by the author. Using the terminologies primarily offered by Gerard Genette, the study draws on allusion, pastiche, and epigraph and explores their relationship with narrative strategies. These elements are, to a great extent, associated with postmodern literature and metafiction. Genette expands the term intertextuality with paratextuality and hypertextuality. It is seen that the author refers to the fictional works under consideration and the previously written other texts, especially in the context of intertextuality. McEwan, as an implied author, stresses reality in three ways. First, he emphasizes reality with the human condition. Second, he stresses discrepancy using parodical and ironical aspects by transforming hypotexts. Third, he questions reality through textuality. The study concludes that McEwan's Atonement and Sweet Tooth incorporate the concepts and elements of intertextuality and self-referentiality, using them as a set of narrative strategies. McEwan is concerned with the interaction between history and fiction and reality and imagination.
The concept of individuality in Scott Westerfeld's Uglies and Lois Lowry's The Giver
This thesis aims to analyze the concept of individuality in terms of achieving the transcendence in two dystopian novels: The Giver by Lois Lowry and Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. The concept of individuality, by its very nature, can exist only with the concept of collectivity. However, this situation also involves a duality. This duality originates from the question of identity. An individual's identity is determined by the principles of the society, therefore s/he struggles to grow a self-identity. Thus, this thesis aims to examine an individual's condition in a social organization. This thesis also aims to examine which role the maturity plays in achieving this transcendence.
The disabled as other in Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper
In his famous book The Order of Things, Michel Foucault explores how the western mind identifies the self and the other in a binary opposition system and examines how relationships between different groups in social structures are affected by those identifications. The disabled people, as one of those differentiated groups, are also influenced by the juxtaposition and forced into otherness in society. In this study, a comprehensive thematological approach to Sharon Draper's latest and bestseller book Out of My Mind is provided. Our research consists of two parts: the first part relies on the critical theory concerning the traditional realist novel and the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin's definition and explanation of the Bildungsroman in order to reveal the thematic perspectives and narrative techniques used by Sharon Draper in her novel; in the second part, the author's way of textualizing and questioning the place of the disabled people in society is discussed through the view of the experience of the protagonist Melody. For this purpose, the concept of "episteme" is introduced, including the new perspectives that Michel Foucault brought to the concept in his work "The Order of Things" (1966), particularly with regard to the theory of "the self and the other". To this, Cripistemology is prompted as a new field of Epistemology, emphasizing the inadequacy of Epistemology to define the disabled. Finally, the thesis discusses the ways in which the contemporary societies marginalise disabled groups and place them into narrow templates as a result of the unconscious bulk of knowledge and for this; Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper provides various examples.
Representation of disillusionment and frustration in John Osborne and Arnold Wesker's plays: A marxist reading of Look Back In Anger and The Kitchen
The aim of this study is to examine the reasons behind the class conflict-based disillusionment and frustration felt by the protagonists Jimmy Porter and Peter in Look Back in Anger and The Kitchen, respectively, which were written by post-war British theatre (1950-1960) playwrights John Osborne and Arnold Wesker who were referred to as the "Angry Young Men" and whose works were written within the context of Kitchen Sink Realism. Being structural issues of industrial societies, alienation and commodification continued in post-war Britain, principally among the working class, because of which they found themselves blocked, detached, and profoundly outraged. This situation turned into a vicious circle for Jimmy Porter and Peter, as they belonged to the same class, despite having different biographies, and both reflected their disappointment- based anger to their surroundings in a rather visible manner. While comparing the two protagonists, Marxist Literary Criticism was used and answers to such questions as "To what extent do class differences affect interpersonal relationships?", "Are people from the same class having different biographies exploited equally?", and "What apparatuses did the upper-class use to maintain its power? were sought. Arguing that these problems are still valid in today's world thanks to the growing strength of capitalism, the study also discussed what type of problems these protagonists might encounter if they were to live in today's world. Consequently, it has been emphasized that the working class needs to take joint action to eradicate their feelings of alienation and commodification. Keywords: Angry Young Men, Kitchen Sink Realism, Post-War Drama, Alienation, Commodification, Class Conflict
A comparative case study of intercultural communicative competence, l2 motivation and l2 anxiety among erasmus+ mobility students and at-home students
In today's globalized world, students increasingly engage in cross-border educational experiences, making intercultural communicative competence (ICC) a critical component of contemporary higher education. The Erasmus+ student exchange program, established by the European Union, enables students to study abroad in culturally diverse contexts, fostering exposure to linguistic and cultural variation. Second language acquisition goes beyond mastering linguistic skills and requires sensitivity to the sociocultural dimensions of language use. For students participating in Erasmus+, direct engagement with individuals from different cultural backgrounds provides a unique context to enhance ICC, strengthen motivation to learn language, and possibly mitigate language learning anxiety. This doctoral study aims to investigate whether participation in the Erasmus+ program results in significant differences in ICC, motivation for learning English, and English language anxiety among university students. It further examines the influence of demographic factors such as age, gender, and academic department on these constructs. Employing an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, the research integrates quantitative analysis (e.g., Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis) and qualitative interviews to present a comprehensive understanding of the Erasmus+ impact. Data were collected from a diverse sample of approximately 325 students from departments such as English Language and Literature, English Language Teaching, Translation and Interpreting, English Linguistics, and American Culture and Literature across multiple universities in Türkiye. The study offers both empirical insights and pedagogical implications for internationalization in higher education.
Identity formation against oppression in Robert Bage's Man as He Is and Hermsprong; or, Man as He Is Not
This thesis argues that Robert Bage (1730-1801) uses anti-colonial discourse and the identity formation of the protagonists in his novels Man as He Is (1792) and Hermsprong; or Man as He Is Not (1796) in order to criticize all kinds of oppression in and out of England and to express his view that English feudalism and colonialism are oppressive and exploitative orders. The English novelist Bage, though not included in the canon of the eighteenth-century English literature and drew little attention from the twentieth century scholars, is a significant author because of his reformist views about England and anti-colonial ideas about English feudalism and colonialism. Bage criticizes and challenges the oppressive, exploitative, and expansionist mindset, and ascribes this mindset to feudalism and colonialism. Accordingly, as this thesis claims, Bage stands against all kinds of oppression such as patriarchal, aristocratic, feudal, and colonial. As opposed to the oppressive traditions and values of feudalism and colonialism, he has reformist views shaped by the social, political, and philosophical novelties of the eighteenth century. Commonly belonging to the Jacobin literary movement, Bage is influenced by the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the ideas of liberty and individuality that stemmed from these historical events. Hence, the introduction chapter of this thesis evaluates Bage's life with respect to his contemporaries and the historical background of the era when he produced his works. Additionally, it examines anti-oppression and anti-colonial discourses with reference to the concepts of colonialism, postcolonialism, and nationalism. Man as He Is and Hermsprong are analysed respectively in two chapters to discuss how Bage criticizes all kinds of oppression, exploitation, and tyranny by portraying the conflict between individual identity and aristocratic group identity in these novels. This thesis uses the anti-colonial theory both metaphorically and directly to examine the author's criticism of oppression. The first chapter analyses the change of identity experienced by a young aristocrat who refuses the aristocratic values and adopts an ideology against oppression in Man as He Is. The second chapter examines the spread of the protagonist's ideology against oppression in a feudal English village in spite of the oppression of the local authority in Hermsprong.
Posthuman feminism in Michel Faber's Under the Skin and Naomi Alderman's The Power
This thesis examines Under the Skin (2000) by Michel Faber and The Power (2016) by Naomi Alderman through the lens of Posthuman Feminism. Featuring non-human female protagonists, these narratives challenge traditional gender roles, speciesism and related power dynamics. By interrogating the limitations of hierarchical frameworks, both novels underscore how binary thinking perpetuates stigma and crisis, underscoring their incompatibility with the embracive, contingent and relational paradigm set forth by Posthuman Feminist theory. Through dystopian narratives that foreground both personal tragedies and global calamities, they demonstrate that reversing these binaries or mapping them onto fluid identities proves equally destructive, as such inversions remain entrenched within the same binaries and hierarchical structures of power. Under the Skin narrates the story of Isserley, an alien who abducts men for consumption, unravelling interactions that question disempowerment and identity across gender and species. Meanwhile, The Power portrays women who gain the ability to emit electrical shocks, overturning global gender dynamics and redefining societal structures. These works disrupt the conventional binaries underpinning Western thought and advocate for a more inclusive understanding of identity, power, and agency in an increasingly convoluted posthuman era by problematising the dualistic understanding of reality. This intersectional approach resonates with contemporary feminist theorists like Rosi Braidotti (1956–), Donna Haraway (1944–), Karen Barad (1956–), whose notions of feminism converge with posthuman theories that emphasise the inclusion of other othered identities. The speculative elements in the novels serve as tools within Posthuman Feminist rhetoric, providing groundwork for such critique. Using this perspective, the novels demonstrate how fiction can serve as a medium for social scrutiny, offering insights into identity and power dynamics within binary structures in a constantly changing reality. The textual analyses reveal how Under the Skin and The Power propose reimaginings of societal roles, prompting a re-evaluation of longstanding dynamics of oppression and empowerment regarding gender and human/non-human dichotomies in light of Posthuman Feminist thought.
A Fanonian reading of the construction of Kenyan national culture in the plays The Trial of Dedan Kimathi and I Will Marry When I Want
After gaining independence in the 20th century, several formerly colonised African nations started to define culture according to their own national literature, dispelling the myth that the British introduced culture to their homeland. As a scholar, author, and playwright, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is among those who have made significant contributions to the concept of culture. He continuously advocates for the advancement of African culture and provides an accurate account of the tragic history of colonialism in Kenya, drawing from his own experiences. His plays, The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, co-written with Mĩcere Gĩthae Mũgo in 1976, and I Will Marry When I Want, co-written with Ngũgĩ wa Mĩriĩ in 1977, set in the pre-independence and post-independence periods of Kenya, respectively, represent the socioeconomic and cultural influence of Britain on Kenya, the development of Kenyan national culture throughout the decolonisation era, and the disparities in attitudes among Kenyans towards whites and blacks. Accordingly, this thesis reads The Trial of Dedan Kimathi and I Will Marry When I Want in the light of Frantz Fanon's theory of the formation of national culture and argues that the plays contain elements of Kenyan national culture, i.e., Mau Mau, Dedan Kimathi, Harambee, Land, Languages, Orature, and Theatre, and illustrate the development of Kenyan national culture according to Fanon's three stages of national culture formation: assimilation, rejection, and revolution. Fanon's three stages describe the colonised native's journey from adopting the coloniser's culture to rejecting foreign influence and, finally, embracing revolutionary action to reclaim their sense of self and fight for freedom. The first chapter analyses how the characters in The Trial of Dedan Kimathi represent Frantz Fanon's stages of native consciousness. The Second Soldier, Gatotia, Business Executive, Politician, and Priest reflect the first phase, assimilation, by embracing colonial values while abandoning their own culture. The First Soldier represents the second phase, rejection, as he begins to doubt the authority of colonisers. Lastly, Boy, Girl, and Woman embody the third phase, revolution, embracing resistance and expressing Kenya's indigenous culture while actively opposing colonial oppression. The first chapter contends that The Trial of Dedan Kimathi exemplifies elements of Kenyan national culture, such as "Mau Mau" and "Dedan Kimathi," by depicting Kimathi as a strong leader and the Mau Mau as courageous fighters. The play demonstrates "Theatre" as a medium for revolutionary ideas, and it also symbolises the "Languages" and "Orature" aspects by using Kikuyu words and songs. Furthermore, the play emphasises the "Land" and "Harambee" components by presenting the struggle for land liberation and the need of unity in the fight for freedom. The second chapter focusses on I Will Marry When I Want, underscoring how Kioi, Jezebel, Ikuua, Helen, and Ndugire represent assimilation, the first stage of Fanon's theory, by imitating colonial behaviours and exploiting their own people. Moreover, it shows how Kiguunda and Wangeci go through transformations that reflect all three stages, from revolution to assimilation and, eventually, rejection, and how Gicaamba and Njooki constantly represent the third stage, signifying revolutionary resistance to colonial and neo-colonial oppression. The second chapter argues that I Will Marry When I Want embodies key elements of Kenyan national culture such as "Languages," since the play was originally written in Kikuyu. The play emphasises "Land" and "Harambee" by depicting the characters' collective opposition to neo-colonial elites' economic and political dominance in their own land, and it uses songs to foster solidarity, which reflects the element "Orature." Furthermore, as being one of the banned works of revolutionary theatre, the play represents the "Theatre" component. Finally, by depicting the Mau Mau insurgents and making references to Dedan Kimathi, the play reflects both the "Mau Mau" and "Dedan Kimathi" components of Kenyan national culture. This study concludes that Ngũgĩ's two plays, The Trial of Dedan Kimathi and I Will Marry When I Want, reflect Fanon's phases of national cultural formation, illustrating Kenya's journey from colonial subjugation and neo-colonialism to rejecting foreign influence and emergence of a unified national culture. Both plays represent the struggle for national culture through their characters and narratives, resulting in the formation of a collective revolutionary consciousness that defines Kenyan national culture.
Swimming against the current: Rethinking orientalism in Julia Pardoe's The City of the Sultan and Grace Ellison's An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem
Throughout centuries, travel writing has been a popular genre of transferring experiences among writers and readers about unknown places. While it has been a valuable study area for not only cultural studies but also history, the subjective nature of travel texts also led to some prejudices about those places. One such prejudice is Orientalism, which is explained by Edward Said as a denigration of the East by Western writers, and this phenomenon is also observed in British travel texts about the Asia Minor. The root of the Orientalism problem stems from several facts such as the tales in One Thousand and One Nights, which depict several features of the East as one entity, and also from studies conducted on the East by scholars who studied the East as a scientific object rather than a region where actual people lived, which caused their dehumanisation by those scholars. In addition to these factors, the texts of travel and fiction, and also the visual arts that depicted the East in the same misrepresentative belittling manner have also been influential in the formation of the Oriental image of the East. While Said stated that the writers of the West contributed to the spread of Orientalism, there also have been writers who wrote against the prejudices of the West and tried to depict the East with an objective perspective. In this thesis, The City of the Sultan of Julia Pardoe and of Grace Ellison's An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem will be analysed through Said's theory of Orientalism in order to highlight how these writers have been different from the previous writers who depicted the East in a negative manner and sometimes showed parallelisms to Said's work, Orientalism. Keywords Orientalism, Julia Pardoe, The City of the Sultan, Grace Ellison, An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem
The use of dark humour in Evelyn Waugh's The Sword of Honour trilogy
Humour is a significant component of human expression, playing an essential role in various dimensions of human experience. It has the connective power and offers a distinctive lens through which societal norms and perspectives can be evaluated. Studies in this field have explored these functions, delving into the underlying mechanics and the effects of comedic elements on individuals and societies, particularly through the lenses of incongruity, superiority, and release theories. Within this context, dark humour emerges as a potent tool for addressing taboo subjects, confronting existential anxieties, and reflecting on life's absurdities. This thesis investigates the use of dark comedy in Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy—Men at Arms (1952, Silah Arkadaşları), Officers and Gentlemen (1955, Subaylar ve Beyefendiler), and Unconditional Surrender (1961, Koşulsuz Teslimiyet)—by examining how Waugh employs satiric, ironic, grotesque, absurd, and parodic modes to critique the absurdities and tragedies inherent in wartime experiences. The analysis is grounded in theoretical frameworks that help elucidate how these comedic elements function within the narrative. Through a detailed examination of key scenes and character interactions, the thesis demonstrates how Waugh's dark humour serves as a critical lens through which he scrutinises the futility of human endeavours during war. Thus, this study argues that Waugh's deployment of dark comedy is a powerful device for exposing the inherent absurdity and futility of the human condition during wartime, revealing the underlying truths beneath the heroic narratives surrounding military systems, structures, and traditions.
A reading of medieval English society in the wakefield cycle and the chester cycle
In the Middle Ages, mystery plays were performed by the clergy in the Church on the Corpus Christi Day to teach the biblical stories to the illiterate people; however, later these stories developed to include earthly elements and moved out from the Church to the towns where the city guilds began to perform these plays on the pageant wagons in cycles. As the medieval period is characterised with religious, political, economic, and social controversies especially in relation to feudalism, these cycles began to touch upon these issues with some entertaining elements. In this regard, this thesis is concerned with a reading of the Wakefield and Chester cycle plays to display the social criticism of society and the portrayal and criticism of women. The Wakefield Master's plays, namely The First Shepherds' Play, The Second Shepherds' Play, and Noah deal especially with the criticism of society regarding the inequality between the feudal lords, serfs, and villeins with a more direct style when compared with the Chester cycle plays, namely The Creation, and Adam and Eve and Noah. Both cycles also reflect women's condition in feudal society in relation to Eve and Virgin Mary. Although in both the Wakefield and Chester cycles the didactic purpose is intermingled with entertaining elements, the Wakefield Master brings in many elements in these plays reflecting women's representation and status in the Middle Ages. Thus, different from the Chester cycle, the Wakefield Master's women characters carry medieval stereotypical traits as well as innovative features, for instance, being individuals who stand against male oppression. Keywords: Wakefield cycle, Chester cycle, mystery plays, The First Shepherds' Play, The Second Shepherds' Play, Noah, The Creation, and Adam and Eve
A Freudian reading of Harold Pinter's early plays: Neurotic characters in The Room, The Birthday Party, and The Caretaker
As a post-war dramatist, Harold Pinter (1930-2008) reflects the effects of trauma and suffering of the period following the Second World War through his enigmatic early plays by presenting characters who seemingly fall victim to neurosis. To comprehend the psychology of Pinter's characters and demystify his plays, Sigmund Freud's views on neurosis are drawn onto in this study. In light of Freud's perspectives on neurosis, this thesis aims to illustrate that Pinter's characters in The Room (1957), The Birthday Party (1957), and The Caretaker (1959) suffer from apprehension, constant fear, aggressive behaviour, solitude, catatonia, obsessions, and paranoia, in other words, neurotic disturbance primarily due to their unfulfilled unconscious desires, that is the unresolved Oedipal urge and the death drive, as well as society's restrictive forces on individuals; thus, the characters in the abovementioned plays are unable to harmonise with their environment. All of the three plays which are selected for this thesis encompass the Freudian elements at their cores. The introduction part gives information about Freudian psychoanalysis and focalises on the period following the Second World War and its traumatic effect on Pinter. Then, the first chapter delves into the impact of the repressed Oedipal and death desires on individuals in The Room. The second chapter, which is about The Birthday Party, analyses castration anxiety through the punishment of a man by the father figures. Lastly, the third chapter examines the desire to get rid of the father figure, in other words, parricide, in The Caretaker. Therefore, this thesis concludes that the individuals in Pinter's early plays fall into the grip of neurosis due to unsatisfied Oedipal and death urges as well as discontent caused by the suffocating effect of social norms. To encapsulate, with the help of the Freudian psychoanalytical perspective, the chaotic unconscious world of the characters is excavated, and it is clarified that they are caught in the vortex of menace, which creeps both into the external world and the depths of their unconscious.
The use of epic and romance elements in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
Since its publication in 1954 The Lord of the Rings has played a prominent role in the development of the genre that will be known as fantasy literature. As an established medievalist himself, J.R.R. Tolkien drew inspiration from romances, having translated Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain & The Green Knight. Tolkien was also no stranger to epic, both owing to his interest, as a linguist, in Old English, as well as his fascination with Nordic myths. His aim as an author was to create a mythology for England by using his knowledge of romance and epic. This thesis is concerned with how Tolkien employs elements of romance and epic in his trilogy The Lord of the Rings. It argues that at the core of Tolkien's narrative are many traditional values and elements that have shaped epic and romance. Accordingly, the grand story of The Lord of the Rings borrows heavily from the quest narrative of chivalric romance and combines it with important elements of epic. The introduction part of this thesis discusses epic, romance, and fantasy genres, attempting to establish a connection between them. Chapter I is concerned with the epic elements in LOTR, such as the hero, the epic catalogue, epic similes and throwbacks. Chapter II deals with the romance elements, particularly those of the knightly romances. It hence examines the knight hero, courtly love, knightly companionship and errantry as they are used in The Lord of the Rings. The conclusion establishes The Lord of the Rings as a work that continues both romance and epic traditions through its use of significant elements of both.
Evolvement of the changeling figure in the selected Elizabethan and Jacobean plays
Changelings are terrorising figures in the beliefs and superstitions of the medieval period. These awe-inspiring figures of the fairy lore were believed to be fairies or inanimate objects left behind after a healthy infant is stolen by troublesome fairies. This belief in changelings, the precaution taken against them, as well as the rituals to get rid of them persisted well into the nineteenth century. While this figure's influence on English society is observable throughout the English history, its portrayals in the dramas of the Elizabethan and the Jacobean periods are worth attention as these representations display a shift from expressing the fears that had been persisting since the Middle Ages to presenting this figure as the embodiment of different ideas. The introduction chapter of this thesis examines the changeling figure in the context of the social history of the medieval and the early modern periods and its representations in literature to reveal its significance, and the fact that its representations were consistent with each other in the mentioned periods. In this context, the first chapter of this thesis analyses two plays from the Elizabethan period, the anonymous Misogonus (1560-77) and William Shakespeare's (1564 – 1616) A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595-96) and comes to the conclusion that the representations of the changeling figure in this period are consistent with folk narratives and legends that include this figure. To examine the differences between the representations of the changeling figure in two different periods, the second chapter conducts a comparative analysis of two Jacobean plays, The Changeling (1622) by Thomas Middleton (1580 – 1627) and William Rowley (1585 – 1626), and The Spanish Gypsy (1623) by Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, Thomas Dekker (1572 – 1632) and John Ford (1586 – 1639). As it is concluded in the second and Conclusion chapters of this study, the changeling figure is no longer represented in the context of fairy lore in the Jacobean period, instead, it evolves into the embodiment of different ideas such as change and transformation due to the influence of James I on the society and literature. Therefore, this study argues that the changeling figure experienced an evolvement in the Jacobean period, as it was separated from its roots in fairy lore, its connotations with the fear of losing an infant, and the superstitions accompanying the figure, and thereby presented as the embodiment of various ideas.
A psychoanalytic criticism of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Melville's Moby Dick
This thesis aims to provide a psychoanalytic criticism of two significant novels of 19th century American Literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Herman Melville's Moby Dick are analyzed under the light of Freudian psychoanalytic theory. The main objective of this study is to show the connection between the main characters, their psychological states and how their actions are influenced by their psychological states. In the first chapter, this study gives the necessary background information about Freud's and Lacan's psychoanalytic approaches, Derrida's deconstruction theory, and the biography of both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. The main objectives of psychoanalytic criticism are highlighted and psychological concepts of psychoanalytic approach are introduced to the reader. The second and third chapters include a detailed psychoanalytic analysis of both The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick. Main concepts related to psychoanalytic criticism, id, ego, superego, unconscious, conscious are analyzed in relation to the central characters of both The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick. The inner conflicts of the characters and how their lives are affected by their repressed desires and childhood traumas are analyzed. The effects of id, ego and superego are discussed during the analysis of the main characters of the novel by making references to their childhood and past memories. In addition to this detailed psychoanalytic analysis of the characters, the major symbols of two novels are analyzed with the help of deconstruction theory. In the fourth chapter, a summary of this thesis including the conclusion drawn from this study is mentioned. Key Words: Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalysis, Repression, Desire, Deconstruction, Oedipus complex
Socio-political and ethical issues in Martin Crimp's major staged plays
Theatre started to transform from the political aesthetics of the 1970s and the 1980s to the avant-garde aesthetic of the 1990s. After a long break, since the British theatre of the 1990s witnessed a new theatre movement, called In-Yer-Face by Alex Sierz, which critiques traditional British Theatre with its cruel language and challenging plots. Martin Crimp has produced his most well-known plays in this aesthetic. To show Crimp's contribution to the British theatre from a wider perspective, this thesis explores Crimp's eight staged plays, Definitely The Bahamas (1987), Dealing with Clair (1988), The Treatment (1993), Attempts on Her Life (1997), The Country (2000), Cruel and Tender (2004), Fewer Emergencies (2005), and The City (2008), basing its discussion on different critical theories, Cultural Materialism, Socialist Feminism, and Artaud's theory. For that reason, different criticisms are applied to his plays in the light of these three theories. In the Introduction, Crimp's life and the In-Yer-Face movement will be scrutinized. In the first chapter, the theories, Cultural Materialism, Socialist Feminism, and Artaudian Theatre, are explained in a detailed way to correlate between the plays and the theories. The aim of the second chapter is to find the analogy between Artaud's theatre, Crimp's theatre, and Crimp's usage of Artaudian cruelty in his contemporary plays. This is why his three plays, Fewer Emergiencies, Definitely the Bahamas, and The Country were chosen according to their main theme, cruelty. Drawing on Cultural Materialism, the third chapter reveals how Crimp reflects the political and cultural factors of his period into his plays, The City and Dealing with Clair, and how he approaches these factors in his plays. In the fourth chapter, women characters in his plays, The Treatment, Attempts on Her Life, and Cruel and Tender, are analyzed to illustrate how Crimp integrates the perception of women body in the contemporary world into his plays. In the conclusion part, it is pointed out how Crimp reflects the cruelness in this world dramatically using stage devices to reach the audiences' unconscious like Artaud. Secondly, Crimp's pessimistic attitude towards the power of ideology and its negative effect on individuals are clarified. The disappearance of the characters in his plays indicates how individuals are victimized in a system. Lastly, after examining female characters in his plays, it is found out that his female characters are imprisoned in the domestic sphere and they fail to struggle with both capitalism and patriarchy.
Imperialism, orientalism and post - coloniality in modern British literature
In this thesis study, the colonial representations of the colonizer and the colonized are examined in the two important literary works in English Literature, namely Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. Together with these, the attitudes of these two writers towards imperialism and colonialism are scrutinized in the light of their above-mentioned books and the secondary sources related to the issue. In the colonial discourse and accordingly in the above literary works, the colonizer is usually represented as the superior race that has positive qualities which the colonized do not have. The colonized is shown as the inferior race that has various negative qualities, so that the colonized is the Other and the colonizer is not. At the same time, it is seen that the colonizer's attitudes and behavior may be better towards the colonized when the latter mimics back toward the former. However, even if colonized natives mimic the colonizer as in Bhabha's mimicry, they become like the colonizer, but not quite. The colonized becomes the mimic of the colonizer, but not quite, so the former is both the mimic of the colonizer and not like the colonizer himself or cannot be like him with all of his privileges. In other words, the colonized is neither the original native anymore after the mimicking process nor like the original colonizer himself with all his superior qualities, so the colonized's situation and thus colonial situations and representations are ambivalent and this negates the power of colonial representations. As has been shown in the literature in the field and especially in Forster's A Passage to India, the colonized must commit an error, do something excessively or have a lack in something so that the colonizer could keep their supremacy and thus their colonial authorityover the colonized. While these main issues of representation are examined, the effects of imperialism and colonialism upon the colonized, the colonizer, the animals, the plants, nature, and the environment are also reflected and explored in this study. As a result,it has been seen that the negative consequences of imperialism and colonialism have affected all the parties, whether the colonizer or the colonized, the animals or the people, the plants or the environment. The attitudes of the writers of the two above books towards imperialism and colonialism are also delineated as the other main issue. Considering the evidence from the texts of the above two books and the secondary sources, the colonial representations of the colonizer and the colonized that these writers use in their above-mentioned books, can be said to be utilized both as a criticism of these imperialistand colonialist representations by showing their awareness of these stereotypes and as a background for their novels which is familiar to the reader of those imperial and colonial days. In this way, the criticism of these two books on imperialism and colonialism would appear milder to the readership in their period of publication in the era of imperialism and colonialization while at the same time it would make the readers more aware of the detrimental and painful effects of imperialism and colonialism on the colonized, the colonizer, animals, plants, nature, and the environment.
Questioning women's status in the Victorian age:Marriage in Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice
This work aims at investigating, in general, the situation of women in the Victorian age and the more specifically the marriage in the Victorian age and how the women were approaching marriage. There were many reasons behind conducting marriage by women in the Victorian age, for example, many women were conducting marriage because their social status was not good or they had a poor family therefore they were relying on marriage to secure their future, while there were many others trying to do marriage just to get economically some interests or money. In this study we have chosen two novels to explain more clearly the conditions women were experiencing at the time, our first novel is Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In Pride and prejudice Jane shows multiple-marriages and the reasons stand behind each marriage. Jane clearly comments about each of these marriages and reveals her preferred marriage and she encourages women to conduct companion marriage because he sees as the most successful marriage. The Second novel is Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Charlotte in this novel shows the social class differences and the attempts women were making to reach their independence. Keywords: women, the Victorian age, Marriage in Pride and Prejudice, Marriage and control in Jane Eyre
Mark Twain's the adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a challenge of social and racial conventions
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has provoked controversy and invited censorship over its one hundred year history. Where once its detractors criticized its themes of violence and rebellion and protested the moral laxity in the language and characters of the novel, in the twentieth century the controversy has evolved into an issue of race. This thesis examines the history of the censorship controversy and examines the twentieth century charges of racism. The contemporary debate on Huckleberry Finn centers on a literal interpretation of the text. Since Twain's treatment of race in the novel is presented through irony, it is crucial that the reader understands the author's ironic intent. An intensive evaluation of Twain's perspective of race, the racial issue, and depictions of race in his novel reveals his use of anti-racism motifs. Twain creates characters that are imprisoned by their social milieu. Huck, Jim, and the society as a whole are entrapped within the confines of the existing slave system and the other entrapments of culture, most notably language. Huckleberry Finn is dialectic in that Twain uses the language against itself. The controversial nature of Twain's subject necessitates the reader's full awareness of Twain's use of irony, language, and point of view in Huckleberry Finn. The figure of Huck as a narrator is the revealing of a divided self, and his developing consciousness and innocence are part of Twain's social satire. Twain's use of language and point of view creates a double vision of race. This duality represents the double consciousness that permeated the nineteenth century America. Keywords: American Literature, Racism, Nigger, Huckleberry Finn, Language
Deceit, family and justice in Miller and Ibsen's plays Crucible, All My Sons and Ghosts
The main goal of this M.A. Thesis is to examine the modern drama in general, along with the most influential figures of the period, namely Arthur Miller and Henrik Ibsen. They are considered to be the prominent play-writes in the modern era. Arthur Miller is well-known for his tragic plays of which I pick up the two, Crucible and All My Sons to study. Secondly, I focus on Henrik Ibsen's famous play, Ghosts. I would say that Arthur Miller and Henrik Ibsen are the two powerful authors of the modern drama and their plays are the most interesting and credible ones as far as the modern drama is concerned. But the important question is what their plays can show us about contemporary individuals, morality, and social reality. This study has variety answers to this question and many other questions about the three plays. I try to consider the major themes which are related with the intrinsic elements of the plays and tackle them through a discussion of the general aspects of the era. The major themes that the plays deal with are Lies and deceit, family, and justice. I think it is plain and clear that we cannot dissociate any of the themes from the majority of the plays written throughout the history of drama. Keywords: Family, Deceit, Justice, Crucible, All My Sons, Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen,Arthur Miller, play.
The representations of domesticity, motherhood and violence in Toni Morrison's Beloved and Alice Walker's The Color Purple
At a time when women around the world were staging a fight against gender discrimination and calling for equal rights with men in their various societies, black American women also tried to make their voices heard. As history holds it, unlike other women especially in the west, their story is different because it was shaped by slavery, which made them not only inferior to men but to women of other races. Coupled with the roles of housekeeping and motherhood assigned to women, thus sidelining them from decision making issues in the society, the African American woman also had to deal with the belittlement, violence and segregation from the white society during and after slavery. In this regard, Tony Morrison and Alice Walker like a host of other black writers, took it upon themselves to tell the stories that were often ignored or could not be perfectly told by men or white writers. Through similar characters Sethe and Celie in the novels Beloved and The Color Purple, Morrison and Alice very much brings out the themes of motherhood, domesticity and violence which affected the lives of the African American woman in various ways. Set in the South of the United States of America where slavery and segregation were most practiced, the novels depict the maltreatment and relegation and of black women both by the white society and the black society. Though Morrison's Beloved is set during slavery and Walker's The Color Purple set during the Jim Crow Laws that separated black and white people, the characters still share similarities in the ways they experience motherhood, domesticity and violence. Morrison and Walker offer an explicit feminist conceptualization of African American politics that exposes and enriches concepts of black feminism and radicalism. In Beloved, Morrison depicts the adverse side of motherhood that many writers of the time failed to consider. By attempting to exercise her motherly role in a period of extreme suffering, Sethe loses her identity and in the process also suppresses that of Denver her daughter. This is occasioned by the maternal ties that link Sethe to her children that preclude her individuation and thwart her self-development. Sethe sacrifices her being. Indeed, we see throughout the novel that all her efforts are directed at atoning for her losses as a daughter and re-establish herself as a good black mother based on the society's conceptualizations. The Color Purple brings out the domestication and motherhood roles of women during the time and the fact that these roles meant that women had no voices, they were to remain silent and suppress their feelings as well as opinions. A good example of domestication of women in Celie's society is Sophia who was a rebellious woman but is forced to silently acquiesce to the social norms of servitude to one's husband and household chores. Similar to Morrison's argument that the suffering in the society caused women to resent the role of motherhood, Sophia is extremely detached with the children that are under her charge. My thesis investigates how Toni Morrison and Alice walker portray the issue of domesticity, motherhood and violence in their novels Beloved and The Color Purple, during and after the days of slavery. The thesis also will provide the possibilities that lead to the characters emancipation. Keywords: Motherhood, Domesticity, Racism, Black Feminism, African-American Literature, Violence, Slavery, patriarchy
The crisis of identity in Toni Morrison's The Bluets Eye and Nella Larsen's Passing
How do the black characters build their identities in Nella Larsen's Passing and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye? The practice of racism has always left negative impacts on the colored and black people in white societies leading them either to self-loath or detesting the white culture. This study is an attempt to provide an answer for the above question and explores what motivates the black characters in the formation of their identities. The thesis will be conducted under the light of double consciousness theory put forward by W.E.B. Du Bois and it also looks at how this double consciousness plays a role in constructing the black characters' racial identities. In this study, I argue that black characters, Clare and Irene in Passing and Pecola in The Bluest Eye, make attempts to establish their identities under the influence of the dominant white culture and reject their black ones, thus they hold double identities. This twoness creates hurdles to their lives because beside their original identity, they should strive to build another one so as to be recognized in the white society. Holding double consciousness, the black characters look at themselves through the lens of the white people. On the contrary, the plight of racism makes Brian in Passing and Claudia in The Bluest Eye reject and create a sort of abhorrence towards the white culture. In contrast to Irene, Clare and Pecola, they are inclined to and endeavor to preserve their black identities and black community values, meanwhile they refute everything belonging to the dominant social white culture. The dominant culture causes the black characters of both novels to suffer and struggle to identify themselves. The holders of double consciousness in both novels are terribly in need of recognition in the white society, which does not recognize them unless they obtain the standards set up by the white dominant culture. The black community in both novels is in a terrible situation, and the black characters are expected to act and work in favor of the white society interests, which look at the black characters as secondary people. In Passing, Irene cannot find security and pleasure in the black community; therefore she feels comfortable and insists on living in New York, furthermore Clare concludes that she is incompetent of escaping her arduous life as a black servant, who is expected to only work hard, as a result she disguises herself as a white woman. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola is rejected in both her community and white society due to her blackness, and this results in her striving to beautify herself by attempting to attain two blue eyes, one of the white standards of beauty. Keywords: Nella Larsen, Toni Morrison, Double Consciousness, Racial Identity Construction, Passing, The Bluest Eye.
An analysis of a struggle between the worlds of the dominator and the dominated through Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Karel Čapek's R.U.R and Isaac Asimov's I, robot
Despite the fact that not only Mary Shelley's ignored and abandoned Frankenstein but also the robots are generally supposed as the tinny machines in some dystopian works such as Karel Čapek's R.U.R. and Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. These three works report a fiction about the artiificial lives created by human beings and the mutual relationship among these works can be mentioned like that all the authors have displayed the potential danger of man's bequested willing of claiming the role of God. The major characters in Frankenstein or R.U.R. attempt to create an artificial life with an excessive desire to control and reach the secrets of nature. It seems as if it questions about the presence of God when viewed from this side, but the theme which is basically focused on throughout the study is the struggle between the worlds of the dominator and the dominated. At the begining, their purpose is to help the humanity, serving better living conditions but then it is understood that the truth is totally different. The truth is as old as humanity. The powerful feeling that perfectly captures the human being is his hubris. On the other hand, the creature and the robots created by human beings seem to feel mostly lonely and strange in the society. Although they unconcsiously begin to be compared with humans, which partly means that they are seen the same as human beings, they are never accepted as an individual by human society. As a consequence of these damaging feelings, they unfortunately attempt to destroy their creator. It is something like a rule of the real world. First, human beings start thinking that they have godlike power while creating those artificial lives. As a matter of fact, creating such creatures which are really like human beings in some points, humans actually try to destroy their creator, who is God himself. Then, the human made creatures start to destroy human beings. This situation could be a punishment to humankind. Every attempt to destroy to law of the nature brings another destruction on humankind. As seen in the following pages, it has been the same in the history as well and every time a struggle has the one winning. The reason why human beings are looking for better choice than death seems that they are creatures many of whom are afraid of dissappering, whom are consciously willing to have a better human race for developing their civilization, and whom believe in their uniqueness with their unique mind. The idea of being immortal attracts humans' attention. Because death is terrifying to most people and this fear from past to present cause human beings reject the truth and seek for another solution for their conscious or unconscious desires. The message of these three works concerning the future would appear dystopian. However, many of the improvements in socio-economic and socio-political areas affect the situation in the natural frame of man and society that would be considered as some positive advancement yet it would horrify mankind. Because this new world order, combined with mankind's limitless enthusiasm reveals it as a great risk for humanity for he creates an artificial life, and then it turns into a struggle between the dominator and the dominated which ends with potential destruction and degradation of both sides.
The de(con)struction of the man-made language and ideology through female sexuality and textuality in the novels of Virginia Woolf and Erendiz atasü
Language, which is simply defined as the system of words or signs shared by a group of people to communicate and express thoughts, has always played an active and dominant role in creating a subjugated and subservient life for women. In this limited life, civilization is patriarchal, history is HIStory, literature is phallocentric and language is man-made. In order to break the chain of vicious circle, forcing them being the inferior 'others' of men, women seek the ways of de(con)structing all the fixed and the hierarchical structures of male discourse and its man-made language. Among those women are Virginia Woolf and Erendiz Atasü, who assert that women can transcend all patriarchal boundaries between body/mind, female/male and self/other through the 'all-encompassing female language', which enables a non-phallocentric 'feminine writing' practice. Depending on the similar concerns of women/women writers about the man-made language that constructs the rigid patriarchal norms, this study, first, puts forward how phallocentric ideology both affects women and how it is challenged by women's writing. Then, basing its argument on the theories of post-structuralist feminism, it analyzes the feminine texts written by Woolf and Atasü, who live in quite different periods and societies that have various philosophic, religious and cultural practices, in order to find out if the 'female language' shares common features despite all these boundaries. The comparative analysis of the two writers reveals that the female language challenges the speech governed by the phallus and brings down phallocentric discourse by writing the pleasures of female body, which are fluid, multiple, diverse and nonhierarchical. Thus, by liberating female body and experiences from the control and authority of the man-made language and ideologies, this new poetic language de(con)structs the distance between 'body and mind' and achieves 'wholeness' by moving beyond the fixed confines of sexual differences. With this all-encompassing unity, Virginia Woolf and Erendiz Atasü validate the possibility of creating a new world built on a true diversity and culture, where all sexes and genders will be equal. As a result, 'the female language' is proved to be offering an egalitarian basis for all humans, not just for women, by de(con)structing the patriarchally constructed gender roles.
An evaluation of the role of using facebook on language learning among EFL university student
Nowadays, social networking sites are becoming popular throughout the world and have been quite popular among various age group users particularly the young users but small number of researches have been done, especially in Iraq, on how much these websites can contribute to language learning and teaching though they seem to offer plenty of opportunities. This study provides insight into EFL students' opinions and attitudes of participating in activities through Facebook for language learning. Therefore, it aims at examining students' views about the online learning atmosphere after having an eight-week course using Facebook, and to find the role of Facebook in language learning. In addition, the study discusses the overall effects and possible uses for Facebook in the field of foreign language learning and teaching. Forty-six students at the English Department, School of Languages from University of Garmian in the academic year (2015-2016) participated as the sample in this study. They were third year University students in northern Iraq, who voluntarily joined a closed Facebook group. This study used a one-group pretest-posttest design to examine its research questions. A questionnaire form using a 5-point Likert scale was used for both tests with research tasks based on any tasks and lessons to improve English language skills. The results indicated that there is a significant difference between participants' attitudes before and after the course and it showed positive attitudes toward most activities for language learning following the completion of the study compared to prior opinions. In the pre-test, the majority of participants considered Facebook to be generally useful because through this network, they can communicate and share knowledge. After the online course, most students indicated that, Facebook has high possibilities for being used as an effective formal educational tool. Furthermore, the posttest revealed that students' positive attitudes toward the usefulness of social networks increased under the influence of research tasks and activities. Finally, this study confirmed that every participant considered Facebook to be highly effective and potential educational tool, especially for improving language knowledge and performance in various online activities.
On the effectof mind mapping to improve reading comprehension skill of iraqi ESP learners
Over the last two decades using visual organizers such as mind mapping in teaching and learning English language has become one of the wide spread used techniques. The current study concentrated on the impact of using mind mapping as a meaningful learning technique in teaching reading comprehension among the ESP learners. The participants of the study consisted of forty Iraqi students at Erbil Polytechnic University who randomly selected in Technical College-Erbil /Department of Business Management. They were divided into two different groups; experimental group which taught by mind mapping and controlling group which exposed to the traditional methods of teaching reading comprehension, 20 students for each group. Their ages were ranged between (18-19) years. The participants are nineteen males and twenty-one females. At the beginning of the study they were given a pretest to measure their reading comprehension ability. Then, they were given the treatment for twelve weeks. After that, they were tested in the posttest to know whether the experimental groups' knowledge increased comparing to the pretest or not. Finally, the findings illustrated a statistically significance difference between experimental group and the controlling group in terms of posttest achievement in reading comprehension scores. Thus, the mind mapping proved to be beneficial in teaching reading comprehension.
The third space, the desert and a new genesis: Bodies, hallucinatory spaces and hum/animals in Angela Carter's and Edward Abbey's fiction
The British writer Angela Carter and the American environmentalist writer Edward Abbey portray an apocalyptic America based on mythological and religious beliefs, as a third space that has become the site of power—a microcosm for the patriarchal capitalist society that is the "center" of the world's misery with its schizophrenic ideas of democracy, capitalism, and globalism. Capitalism and Globalism for Angela Carter, Edward Abbey, Ronald David Laing, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze induces madness with its discourses and grand narratives about success and growth and destroys the whole world by turning it into a commodity. Starting from the 17th century madness is excluded from the scientific and philosophic discourses so there could be no language between reason and madness as affirmed by Foucault. Discourses about animality and criminality were established in the context of madness. This also led to the racial, religious, lingual establishments consisting of valuable and invaluable human categories. Freudian and Lacanian concepts of lack contributed to further categorization. For R.D. Laing, M. Foucault and G. Deleuze & F. Guattari the institutions of psychoanalysis contribute to capitalisms negative aims. For R. D. Laing madness is not only an individual problem but must be considered in societal terms. And madness maybe considered as a form of personality. With his view of madness he gave voice to the mad people and with his idea of the divided self in existential terms he opened a third space related to perception of madness and personality. On the other hand, for Foucault, the body must be the focus in questions related to the self and madness. The body is shaped via the technologies of the self. With his view that all relations are power relations there is a shift to the space suggesting that all relations are spatial. The body being shaped by these power relations becomes also imprisoned in the soul. Madness may be a response of the individual and may be a form of personality or a choice of existence as suggested by Laing and it maybe a Flight from unwanted experiences, but this wiew will contribute to the ongoing system that will continue to induce madness. Then how is it possible to break away from the effect of prevalent discourses related to power relations and the self restrictive technologies of the self? So there is the necessity to employ Deleuze's "Nomadic thought" for "Flight," whom Foucault calls the philosopher of this century. In Deleuze's philosophy each concept in a thinking process must be analyzed in order to redifine and create new concepts that will enable Flight. Rather than focusing on lacks, gaps must be found in order to fill them with becomings. In doing this, two terms are crucial, active and reactive, are the terms which Deleuze took from Nietzsche and adopted in his own philosophy employing nomadic thought. Active forces are the possessors of power, who rule and dominate massess. Reactive forces are the ones, who react to these discourses, but remain passive as part of the massess. There is the necessity to go beyond and above these discourses to give way to active discourses that surpass those of the dominating and controlling forces. For this reason, there is the need to indulge in active thinking processes and to do philosophy. There is also the need to deconstruct the discourses related to doing philosophy, as it should not be the job of the philosophers only. It should be made the job of any thinking individual. In this process of thinking, the aim of this thesis is to take Homi K. Bhabha's concept of Third Space from its context of psychoanalytical tradition and discuss its application for possibilities of opening new third spaces via Deleuzian nomadic way of thinking. Homi Bhabha calls the" liminal" space between the two World or cultures of the colonizer and colonized as the " Third Space of enunciation." Entering the "Third Space" shows the potentiality of constructing a non-fixed identity, it generates a new sense of identity that maybe "almost the same, but not quite" thus discourses about madness, religion, science, sexuality and criminality can be changed with different discourses. Bhabha, uses the Freudian term, "the unheimlich" which means the 'Unhomeliness,' to suggest that what is involved in the construction of hybrid identity is an "estranging sense of the relocation of home and the world— the unhomeliness—that is the condition of extra-territorial and cross-cultural initiations." Being surrounded by this unhomeliness, the world will be "soundless," and "disorganized" for these hybrid individuals. Such a hybridity takes place as a result of cultural diversity, which keeps the different other under control and gaze in an alien territory. Angela Carter's and Edward Abbey's works present homeless characters as third space hybrid characters, who have open-boarded identity, to create various new concepts related to animality, criminality in its context of madness and to enable the possiblity for flight that is to bring about a new philosophy. This new philosophy is the ecosophy in Angela Carter's and Edward Abbey's novels. These characters are also polyhonic. They are also the outcome of the third space actual and virtual America, particulary the American and Russian Desert. These characters are made active and they use violence in order to give way to the creation of new concepts. For the analysis of these charcters, there is the need of doing an anti-psychiatric reading based on Laing's ideas of madness and a reading based on Deleuze & Guattari's anti-oedipal and ecopsychiatric reading alongside Edward Abbey's environmental philosophy of the self. The whole thesis is established on a reading of R. D. Laing's view of madness and the dynamics of crime in America based on the views of the writer and critic Joyce Carol Oates in her fiction as studied by Dilek Ünügür Çalışkan in her MA thesis Crime and Suicide as a Consequence of Madness in Joyce Carol Oates's Fiction (1998). Carter and Abbey by taking their characters from the capitalist comsumerist madness inducing environments into the Desert,,they try to establish their new philosophy, the ecosophy as the third space in the actual third space desert. The desert as an isolated place is excluded from the discourses of civilization in history and must be included in scientific and philosophical discourses. As Deleuze asserts, concepts have both actual and virtual meaning. The desert having both actual and virtual meaning must co-exist. concepts do not merely exist on their own and should be taken alongside with a cloud of meanings surrounding them. From this viewpoint the desert conveys several meanings, the desert in addition of being a technological testing site is the home for the indegenous inhabitants and several animate and inanimate objects. Unfortunately, it is turned into a place of suffering and pain for many people, among them the indegenous children and women who suffer the most. In addition, the desert is the place for evolution of nonbordered identities as it is a nonbordered open space of the nomad, like Mexican American, who travel in and out of Mexican border. Native American people and Russian Indegenous people are other nomadic people, who were forced to settle down in villages. In their stories the trickster figure and shaman are counter figures, who have counter stories against the mainstream stories of the West. When looked from this perspective Carter's and Abbey's characters are like Deleuzian characters very like in Kafka's minor literature and in minor art like the Chicana painting. Edward Abbey created his self, actually, his ecoself and new environmental discourses in the desert in his autobiography Desert Solitaire and opened a third space in literature. For him, the desert as a wild space must exist and the grand narratives about success and growth that contribute to the destruction of wild spaces must be changed. Reading Angela Carter's novels from this perspective, as she is also fascinated by American open spaces enables the reading of the desert and the open spaces, as the place for the creation of a new self, the ecoself. Her characters are subjected to shape-shifting to create an ecosophy. Alongside R. D. Laing's, M. Foucault's, G. Deleuze's & F.Guattari's views of madness and the self, Edward Abbey's description of the environmental self can be employed in reading of these three novels.for the creation of new selves in the context of the new philosophy, the ecosophy. These novels present mad, hybrid, assembled characters, whose reading cannot be based solely on the reading of the self & other, but there is the need to employ the notions of the self & multiple others. These characters are a little bit indegenous, animal, woman all at the same time and they are polyphonic suggesting nonbordered identity that cannot be categorized and classified according to western viewpoint. They are subjected to violence and experiential learning in the desert. These forms of violence stand for the visible and invisible crimes comitted in the society. By showing these crimes the self can be saved from its confinement in scientific, religious, philosophical and psychoanalytical discourses in history. And this cannot be done by ideology, but it can be done with the effort of the willing individual, who desire change and transformation. Discourses related to West & East and Capitalism & Communism are created in order to establish the third space American character the obeying and consuming Little Man of the mass. The model of the New Little Man is spread to the world through media and Hollywood. In addition stereotypes are created to make the consumerist Little Man common. It is also anounced as the only possibility of man and grand narratives are created that would accompany him as explained in the second part of this thesis. The intellectual background in America is established as the Third Space for philosophical, religious, scientific as well as psychoanalytical discussions and show how bodies and geographical spaces are shaped. The first part of this thesis, as the introduction part, discusses the necessity for a new philosophy employing the nomadic thought via a Deleuzian conceptual toolbox in explaining the hybrid, polyphonic, in-between, homeless characters in these three novels in the light of Laingian, Foucauldian, Deleuzian view of madness and environmental philosophy of Edward Abbey. In the second part concepts that are represented with the allegorical hybrid, polyphonic characters are discussed one by one applying the nomadic way of thinking in the light of R. D. Laing's view of madness of society, M. Foucault's technologies of the self, Deleuze and Guattari's schizoanalysis and ecopsychology. In the third part of this thesis the body in its relation to space, and the discourses about the dynamics of thingification and environmentalism and the elements that shape and map the body and the land, are discussed in the works of Edward Abbey and Angela Carter. There is the discussion of the relation between self & other, self & others, us & them and how the desert is excluded from the discourses of civilization as an isolated space. First there is the dissection of human body and mind, then there is the rigid categorization of the human body with gender roles, and then there is the seperation of the human body from the animal body and lastly there is the seperation of the human body from the body of the Earth. With the disconnection of time and space the human being is doomed to dangle in a void. Now the human being has to look for the ways to connect to other bodies and the body of the Earth. The fourth part of this thesis analyzes The Passion of New Eve, Nights at the Circus, The Monkey Wrench Gang as an active third space and look for possible ways to create the new self in their eco philosophy. It also discusses scientific and psychoanaytical animality discourses based on Freud's view and sexuality discourses in juxtoposition with the counter discourses of animality based on animal symbolism in the indegenous counter stories. In this context western animal symbolism is discussed with the counter indegenous animal symbolism. Madness in this context is again important as it is one of the important characteristics of shamanism. It is important to note that shamanism should not be considered as a new religion. Here, being on the shaman's road and the effort in trying to connect to the sacred spirits is important. In other words it is a quest like pilgrimage that differs from religion to religion that will not be discussed in this thesis. Angela Carter's and Edward Abbey's characters are like a shaman, a historical, a political, a religious, a feminist and an activist figure and appear on other characters' roads as changing and shape-shifting allegorical characters that tell the only necessity of protection of the life on Earth and the preservation of Earth despite the differences in viewpoints. These openbordered identities are forced to use violence as it is a reaction to their violent environment. Their aim is not violence. The behavior of the mad characters can be considered as a reaction as they cannot distinguish real power from the false one. Change can be possible by opening the mind as a third space for thinking and imagination. In the sixth section of the thesis these characters can be thought as a possiblity of the creation of new concepts for the ecosophy presented in the three novels. And these newly created concepts (characters that shifted shape) ) show the possibility of Flight. In conclusion these new becomings can give way to constructive discourses. The various faces and roles of the shaman can show different ways in approaching the world that is the only real thing that makes life possible and is therefore sacred. There is the need to integrate the discourses related to the sacred Earth and life on it, into world religions to save, protect and enlarge the diversity of life on Earth as a third space in the way Carter and Edward Abbey in their eco philosophy do. Being active, indulging in thinking process, accepting only after questioning and challenging dogmas, being aware of real personal needs and real talents, respect for the different and diverse, the effort to connect one's body to the earth's body, not labeling people because of race, color, language and choices can be possible by creating an egoless self, an ecoself that will give way to ecodemocracy. Feminism, ecofeminism, environmentalism, tribal feminism can be active discourses, but being confined in one of these -isms, without being open to difference that can bring about change in eco consciousness would be restricting, considering the evolution and development of these -isms as a consequence, or complimentary part of the former –isms in history makes the rise of ecodiscourses possible. Alongside the scientific third space discussion related to the search of life on other planets like Mars, there is the necessity to create a third space in the present real world in respect of religious discourses that do not only center around the life after death (heaven & hell). World religions should open a third space for the real world rather than virtual world. Angela Carter and Edward Abbey by liberating the eye from the white face of the commanding and threatening master to travel around the world via the animal and black colored, beastlike faces of their characters that replace the white face of Jesus Christ and open a third eye to different perspectives that would allow the creation of new concepts. It also suggests, the possibility to look at the inhuman world through the eyes of different creatures and this is only possible with high levels of empathy. Angela Carter and Edward Abbey in opening a third space of philosophy as ecosophy in their active act of writing and art as they exorcise the evil residing in society.
Raising pragmatic competence in foreign language classrooms
Second language pragmatics has recently been a prevailing topic in the field of second language teaching. While many studies have been conducted about why, how and what to incorporate regarding the teaching of pragmatic competence, there are still unsolved issues about them. This study addresses the possibility of developing pragmatic competence in EFL classrooms through well-designed curricular courses. The study also examined the impact of proficiency in expediting pragmatic production in English L2 learners. Fifty senior university students (25 males; 25 females) with English high proficiency attended the course, participating in a pre-test before instruction began and a post-test upon course completion. The study addresses several significant questions, namely the relationship of proficiency and development of pragmatic competence, the impact of class-based explicit instruction in raising competence, and the role of gender as an influencing factor affecting competence. Unlike previous studies, this study covered more than one aspect of pragmatic production, including inference, implicatures, structural errors in meaning and interpretation, and speech act (requests, refusals, apology and offer). The study produced key findings that can help inform and improve the incorporating of pragmatic competence in language study; proficiency level significantly impacts pragmatic competence; pragmatic-based curricula are supportive in constructing competence; gender factor does not affect learning pragmatics, as both genders performed similarly in the tests. Eventually pragmatic competence can expectedly be raised via classrooms-based courses.
Political propaganda in Shakespeare's history plays
This dissertation has attempted to understand the political propaganda in the history plays of William Shakespeare and draw connection between the Shakespearean Stage and the mass media of our age in terms of the loss of the real concept of Jean Baudrillard and social psychology techniques such as primacy effect, cognitive dissonance theory and classical conditioning of the modern age. Analysing Macbeth, King John, Richard II and Richard III in the light of new historicism and deconstruction theories has given the chance of crosschecking the findings about the loss of the real through two different methods. Both the outcomes of the new historicist analysis, which demonstrated the distortions of the historical events from the windows of the Renaissance authors like Raphael Holinshed, Edward Hall, Richard Grafton and George Buchanan, and the outcomes of the deconstruction which revealed the binary oppositions causing violent hierarchies for the favour of the monarchy have indicated the fact that Shakespeare distorted historical realities in his history plays. Both the loss of the real as the outcome of the new historicist and deconstructive analyses, and Shakespeare's quality in using social psychology techniques such as classical conditioning, primacy effect or cognitive dissonance theory have enabled this dissertation to reinterpret Shakespeare from a different perspective. William Shakespeare, probably the greatest playwright of all times, always allows us to restudy and reinterpret his plays in the light different methods and techniques. As long as human being advances in time, science and technology, his plays allow us to reinterpret them from different perspectives. Therefore, it is possible to maintain that Shakespeare is never out of date and will always attract the attention of the researchers. Keywords: Elizabeth theatre, William Shakespeare, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, deconstruction, new historicism, social psychology, simulacra and simulation
The crisis of identity in postcolonial literature
During the second half of the twentieth century a new era arose when many countries gained independence, transitioning from colony to country. According to literary critics and theorists, the term "postcolonial" is defined as all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. Colonialism has had an immeasurable influence on history of the world, societies and individuals. It has penetrated the larger issues of culture, race, gender, and identity. Most themes that postcolonial theory and literature deal with are race, gender, ethnicity, identity and culture. One of the controversial issues of post colonialism is the question of identity and culture. In the modern world with the increase of immigrant numbers, hybrid nations, and constitutions of countries with different cultural diversities, the question of identity came to the surface. Theorists have paid a great attention to identity issues. Franz Fanon's argued about the consequences of colonialism and the change formed by the experience of immigration. For Edward Said, the central point of identity construction is the ability to resist and to recreate oneself as a postcolonial, anti-imperialist subject. At the same time, postcolonial novelists especially writers in former British colonies attracted the attention of readers and literary prizes. These novelists exposed and expressed the conditions of identity crises that emerged in postcolonial period. Their novels rarely avoided or escaped from the presence of Diasporas and exile and matters connected to identity. Chapter 1 of this thesis introduces the study and a brief account of the meaning and historical background of the term "postcolonial"; it also sheds light on some important issues of postcolonialism and its most commonly discussed terms, such as diaspora, hybridity, and displacement. In addition, it explains the nature of the novel and of the period and its emergence, figures and characteristics. The theoretical approach of the dissertation is discussed in Chapter 2, which explains briefly postcolonial theory, and then investigates outstanding theorists, Stuart Hall, Fanon, Said, Bhabha, Bill Ashcroft, Eduard Glissant, and others. These theorists have given greater attention to explaining identity crisis in the postcolonial era because of its importance in the complexity surfaced after colonialism. Chapter 2 also argues the value of identity as a thematic subject in the postcolonial period and literature. The chapter's main discussion focuses on the theorists' arguments about identity in the postcolonial world and their views about the construction of identity in former colonized countries. In particular, they note immigrants from postcolonial countries who suffered the diasporas and the dilemma of constructing a coherent identity. Chapter 3 is devoted to analyzing the novel The Lonely Londoners (1956), by the Trinidadian author Sam Selvon, and its connections to postcolonial theory, especially Fanon and Said, whose have discussed identity, homelessness, and the diasporas of the Caribbean immigrants in the postcolonial period. Chapter 3 also examines The Lonely Londoners as a textual space concerned with picturing the specific experiences of a marginalized and diasporic group of individuals encountering the colonial "centre" of London. Chapter 4 analyzes the crisis of identity in Nobel Prize-winner Naipaul's The Mimic Men (1967). The chapter derives its argument from postcolonial theorists Fanon and Said arguments about mimicry and the crisis of identity felt by Naipaul's protagonist. The discussion shows the impact of colonialism on individual ambivalence and the loss of identity and how this leads to an imitation of the colonizer's identity. Chapter 5 also shows the findings of the study, arrived at from the above postcolonial novels and analyzed according to arguments of postcolonial theories in issues of the identity crisis. The conclusion shows how pro-colonized people faced their crisis of identity as a dilemma, ascribed to the impact of colonial tradition; the history of colonialism weighed heavily even on immigrants who became citizens of colonizer countries. Finally, the strategy of colonial power has had an effective influence on colonized people losing their sense of identification and becoming mimics of their host countries and while remaining with a sense of homelessness.
Samuel Beckett ve Ferhan Şensoy'da uzam ve güç
The aim of this study is to analyze the concept of space and investigate the theory of power, the effects of power and panopticism over the characters in the plays of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Endgame, and Ferhan Şensoy's Güle Güle Godot (Good Riddance Godot). Theories on space, power and panopticism of Michel Foucault form philosophical background of the study. The study is comprised of five chapters. The first chapter introduces the research questions and the second discusses Michel Foucault and his philosophy. The third elaborates the Theatre of the Absurd, Samuel Beckett, Turkish Traditional Theatre and Ferhan Şensoy and outlines the plots and the background of the plays in question. The fourth chapter addresses the research questions and carries the discussion forward into analysis of the plays. Detailed analysis and the discussion of the concept of space is presented for all three plays. The six principles of heterotopias of Foucault are examined in the plays in detail. Power in the plays is scrutinized and how the characters are affected by power is analyzed and discussed. The effect of panopticism is studied and the manners of the characters against panopticism is investigated. The final chapter of the study synthesizes the answers to the research questions. The answers that are found in the plays shed light to the societies that the plays belong to. The findings demonstrate that Şensoy's characters are more hopeful for their future than Beckett's. Beckett's characters are either in restrained action or in total confinement. Şensoy's characters even after psychological and physical destruction recover quickly and try to establish their own authority. Personal ties among the characters are stronger in Good Riddance Godot than they are in Beckett's plays. In Beckett's plays, there is an interchangeable power relationship between the characters, and this power relation is based on mutual need. On the other hand, there is a pure and sincere friendship among people in Good Riddance Godot. All the characters in the three plays studied are waiting but in different manners and with different expectations. They all want to change their circumstances and try to find answers to the questions mostly about themselves and the world around them. In Beckett, the questions remain unanswered, but in Şensoy, the main problem is at least answered.
The fall of masculinity through transfiguration in virginia woolf's "Orlando" and Angela Carter's "The Passion of New Eve"
Throughout centuries, 'sex and gender' phenomena have always been the unvarying subject of the primordial argument in the whole world, as people have been put into hard-edged stereotypes under the title of two certain roles "man" and "woman". However, as Judith Butler would also put it "gender is fluid" and we need to look at it from a broader perspective. Only if we remove the borders of traditional gender roles, can we see the fluidity and realize that there are also other gender related aspects like "Transgenderism", "Transfiguration" and "Transformation". The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter and Orlando by Virginia Woolf are two works which abolish the 'hard-edged' borders and deconstruct the traditional gender roles through Transfiguration. On the one hand, Angela Carter breaks down the hierarchical structure of the phallocentric, language, through 'transformation' of the two characters in her novel, Evelyn and Tristessa. On the other hand, Virginia Woolf melts down the solidity of the male centred world by fictionalising an ambiguous world where the main character experiences different gender roles via transfiguration. This study will account for how the balance of power replaces, how the concept of gender is associated with this balance of power with the help of Judith Butler's gender performativity and Michel Foucault's power-pleasure relationship theories by looking at the reasons and results of the transfiguration and the transformation of the characters in Virginia Woolf's Orlando and Angela Carter's The Passion of the New Eve.
Catholicism as an obstacle, or fostering, feminism in the twenty-first century
This thesis is addressed to our generation and to future ones, where - especially in the rich Western countries - respect for the person in all of his/her social, cultural, religious and emotional complexity is becoming lost. Our choice of this Thesis topic is influenced by the fact that never before our modern age have we witnessed such an attack on the family - in which the woman plays a key role. She is, in our opinion, the mortar that holds together the bricks that make up our civilized society. Hyper-reality has taken the place of reality, and the map has become the territory, as Boudrillard claimed; history is no longer based on the "verum ipsum factum" of G.B. Vico, but rather on the "interpretation of fact" anticipated by Nitzche and continued until the present postmodernism era. The division between "res cogitans" and "res extensa" of Descartes in the sixteenth century, which still influences Western thought, led to the extreme result of the exaltation of the object over the subject, and of the body over the spirit. We have reached a point of complete objectification and commmodification of the body in a society where production and reproduction of the object are the idols held as necessary for the welfare of the modern globalized world. In this situation, the wellness of the individual has a priority over the well-being of the collective, and the slogan "the body is mine and I manage it", especially among women, is the focus of a lot of commentary in both the literary and media fields, and also amongst politics and law. We are witnessing a "globalization of indifference" towards anything that does not produce wealth. In our time, it seems that nothing can be opposed to the ideology of "pensèe unique" or "weak thought" which tends to give the impression that the preferences of individuals have the same status as their rights. We argue in this Thesis that this ideology leads to a culture of weak and restricted thoughts, based solely on personal preferences and conformed to the spirit (logic) of the world that seeks to make humanity into a thoughtless mob – totally lacking in real freedom. Most of all, however, this ideology suggests to humanity a very dangerous offer in proposing a prêt-à-porter ['ready to wear'] way of thinking according to personal taste: 'I think as I like!' and therefore, "I do as I please". This individualist way of thinking, mainly based on the objectification of the human being, is one of the most divisive and dangerous elements to be introduced into our society. In fact, it is taking those of us who are living in the current post-modern globalized world into a "globalization of indifference" where the relationship with the other is being killed - leaving each person, and especially women – alone, and suffering unaccompanied through their existential problems. From the seventies onward, feminist lay movements have claimed roles for women that are vigorously different from the stereotype of the "mother-wife" and "angel of the house" (as Virginia Woolf cited in her work, "A Room of One's Own") and have violently attacked the Catholic Church and accused it of misogyny and carrying out a "demonization" of the female body and its sexuality. In fact, for a long time, when scholars studied the sources of anti-feminism, they considered Judeo-Christian culture as a primary obstacle to the emancipation of women. Certainly, from the origins of Judeo-Christian practices until modern times, the relationship between men and women has been of the patriarchal type. This was justified and supported by a male interpretation of the Bible, which for centuries led women to live in a marginalized and often servile relation to men. And in this context, lay feminist movements consider Italy to be one of the most anti-feminist countries in Europe, due to its obedience to the Pope, and its adherence to the Magisterium of the Church in defense of the natural family and in protection of the dignity of the human person from the moment of his/her conception. Therefore, the (pseudo) liberating individualism of the "single" thought has led in recent decades to the growth in Europe of a society capable of regarding certain members as "waste". This thought has increasingly eroded the traditional family consisting of: father, mother and children that should be regarded both historically and in the future as the vital cell of our society. The importance of our research consists in proposing to the reader a point of view that is different from the single thought; this alternative perspective allows for the emancipation of women and proposes that they be appreciated for their own mental and physical integrity: body–spirit. It is the intention of this Thesis to show that through honoring this body-spirit integrity in women, we have the opportunity to preserve and promote one of the most precious assets that we have for the progress of society as a whole, and for women as members of that society. Our thesis demonstrates how the aim of the Catholicism, in our postmodern era, is the promotion of the sacredness of the human being in all spheres of society without putting women in opposition to men, but rather, working together with him to build a New Humanism in which the word feminism makes no sense anymore.