Tanzimat romanlarında erkek narsisizmi

Abstract

In this thesis, Ahmet Mithat Efendi's Felâtun Bey and Râkım Efendi (1876), Namık Kemal's Awakening (1876) and Recaizâde Mahmut Ekrem's The Carriage Affair (1895) are analyzed in the context of narcissism, both by presenting readings of each novel in itself, and by elaborating comparative aspects between the subject-matter novels. Dominant male characters in the work of male authors of the Tanzimat period, and narrators that reflect male-dominance in their viewpoints seem to reveal narcissistic traits. Given this aspect, the subject-matter narcissism is taken to be rather gendered. These novels, acknowledged as the founding texts of the Tanzimat literature, embed narcissistic structures not only regarding their dominant male characters and narrators, but also with their fictional configurations and theses. After establising this claim, the question of why narcissism is an encompassing and distinctive paradigm that is come across in every aspect of Tanzimat novels is taken up. The narcissistic pattern in the novels, which were written when the (self)- westernization/modernization process took off, is claimed to be the reflection of the arrogant attitude serving as a defense mechanism against the negative self-image, which was created by the retrogressing Ottoman Empire. The grounding facts for this conclusion are that the narcissistic character, which reveals itself by attitudes relating to vanity and arrogance, is in fact due to a deep resentment, that the arrogant attitude is not the cause for narcissism but the effect of it, and that this attitude actually is employed as a means of self-defense against the feeling of unworthiness.