FALL OF WOMEN IN BRITISH LITERATURE AND TURKISH LITERATURE OF 19TH CENTURY: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH
19. YÜZYIL İNGİLİZ EDEBİYATI VE TÜRK EDEBİYATI’NDA KADINLARIN DÜŞÜŞÜ: KARŞILAŞTIRMALI BİR YAKLAŞIM

Author : Elmas ŞAHİN
Number of pages : 83-97

Abstract

From Adam and Eve to the present, woman having treated as a second sex in all over the world, has been doomed and blamed because of Eve's original sin developing as a kind of femme fatale, and described as a sinner creature. These kinds of Biblical and patriarchal points of view to female sex were reflected to the literary works as the Eve's daughters or 'angel' and 'monster' images to 'victimized women'. In both British literature of Victorian period and Turkish literature of Ottoman period of Nineteenth century fallen images of women had an importance place consciously or unconsciously in fictional works of British and Turkish writers such as Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist (1838), David Copperfield (1850), Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton (1848), Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1847-48); Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847), Oscar Wilde's Salome (1891), Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1889-1891), as for Turkish novel of the same age, Şemsettin Sami's Taaşşuk-i Talât ve Fıtnat (1872), Namık Kemal's Intibah (1876), Ahmet Mithat Efendi's Yeryüzünde Bir Melek (1879), Henüz On Yedi Yaşında (1881), Karnaval (1881), Dürdane Hanoum (1882), Fatma Aliye Hanım's Muhâzarât (1892), Nabizade Nazım's Zehra (1894-1896), Sami Paşazade Sezai's Sergüzeşt (1889), Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil's Aşk-ı Memnu (1900) In this study, the reasons and results that women were subordinate to men in reality and fiction in British and Turkish novels, , the social customs describing woman at home as angel or innocent; and woman outside as fallen or monster, both Victorian and Turkish societies' 'untouchable' virtues, by focused on Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and Zehra by Nabizade Nazım, are compared and contrasted in the light of literary works in terms of comparative literature theory and feminist literary criticism. Here I argue the fact that fallen woman as either angel or monster was a victim of patriarchal authority in the eyes of society of 19th century, referring to the femme fatales or fatal women represented in the novels.

Keywords

British Woman, Turkish Woman, Original Sin, Fallen Women, Femme Fatal, Angel/Monster

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