Body-soul problem in Peyami Safa's novel : Yalnızız

Abstract

Peyami Safa (1899-1961), whose Dokuzuncu Hariciye Koğuşu (1930) is one of the best novels of the early Republican period, had been mostly recognized for his psychological descriptions. Although Safa produced numerous stories, essays, plays, articles, translations, and textbooks, he is now drawing attention mostly with his novels. The dominant subject in the works of Peyami Safa before 1949 is the East-West dilemma and problems resulting from this conflict. Identity crisis and the problem of “placelessness” can be mentioned among the issues caused by this conflict. In this period, Safa tries to answer the question “Are we from the East or from the West?” and to create an “East-West synthesis”. In his works written before 1949, Safa attempts to establish his argument with a model that is composed of four persons. In this model one can distinguish a selective woman, two men representing the West and the East and a “wise person”, mostly representing the author. In this dominant model with the theme of love, the East-West problem is discussed through binary oppositions and main characters generally use their choices in favor of the East. With this attitude the author expresses his wish to ascertain the rightfulness of the lifestyle that was shaped by Eastern philosophy, and his devotion to traditional values as opposed to materialism. After 1949, the East-West problem is replaced with the body-soul opposition. One can see signs of this transformation in Safa’s Matmazel Noraliya'nın Koltuğu (1949) and Yalnızız (1951). In this study, the body-soul conflict encountered in the works of Peyami Safa is analysed with respect to Yalnızız. Until 1951, the illustration of materialist philosophy was made through the “body”, but later, this dualism is transformad into a “body-soul association” for the ideal person which is exemplified through the main character. In Yalnızız, this character is Samim. Thus, it is understood that the author no longer approaches the body-soul argument from a dualist point of view but creates a synthesis, which can be summarized as the harmony of the soul with the body.