ZADIE SMITH’IN BEYAZ DİŞLER VE ELİF ŞAFAK’IN İSKENDER ADLI ROMANLARININ İNTIHAL AÇISINDAN İNCELEMESİ

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF ‘WHITE TEETH’ BY ZADIE SMITH AND ‘HONOUR’ BY ELIF SHAFAK FROM THE STANDPOINT OF PLAGIARISM

Abstract

Elif Shafak is an award-winning prominent novelist who was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971. Being one of the most widely read woman writer in Turkey, she writes her novels in both Turkish and English. She has written nine novels most of which became best-sellers. Her books have been translated into more than forty languages. Her novel Honour (Iskender) which was published in the summer of 2011 was accused of plagiarism for its resemblence to Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. Through a close reading, one can observe that though there are some similarities in terms of the theme and the characters between Shafak’s Honour and Smith’s White Teeth, on the contrary there are also differences as well in terms of the basic elements of the novel. It is usual that the novels dealing with the same themes will most likely have some similar characters entangled with similar problems. Considering what the term plagiarism denotes, this article aims to highlight the resemblences and differences between the two novels through a close reading of both. Thus, the two novels are going to be compared in terms of such literary elements as setting, plot, characters, themes, and point of view Elif Shafak is an award-winning prominent novelist who was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971. Being one of the most widely read woman writer in Turkey, she writes her novels in both Turkish and English. She has written nine novels most of which became best-sellers. Her books have been translated into more than forty languages. Her novel Honour (Iskender) which was published in the summer of 2011 was accused of plagiarism for its resemblence to Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. Considering what the term plagiarism denotes, this article aims to highlight the resemblences and differences between the two novels through a close reading of both. Thus, the two novels are going to be compared in terms of such literary elements as setting, plot, characters, themes, and point of view. Through a close reading, one can observe that though there are some similarities between Shafak’s Honour and Smith’s White Teeth, on the contrary there are also differences as well in terms of the basic elements of the novel. It is usual that the novels dealing with the same themes will most likely have some similar characters entangled with similar problems. In other words, it means that despite the thematic similarity and the spatio-temporal multiplicity in both novels the two authors have picked up various distinct stories to weave their plots in different tones and narrations applied to the characters that face common issues of late 20th century. Compared in terms of ‘point of view’ the two novels are completely different in the way that Shafak uses first person point of view with a solemn approach to the incidents, whereas Smith uses third person omniscient with a sarcastic and comic approach. In terms of the settings in both novel, it is likely to underline that the multiplicity of the settings is a commonality in both novels. They both use more than one generation and they go beyond the political borders of the countries. The physical setting where the plots mostly take place is the multicultural metropolitan city of London in late 1980s and 1990s. On the other hand, they differ in that while Şafak moves the story from a 1950s’ Kurdish village to Istanbul then to London and stretches it even to Abu Dhabi, Smith’s novel has a background of British Jamaica, a WW2 Bulgarian village and Bangladesh before ending up in today’s London. As for the characters in both novels, there are similarities and differences. Şafak’s Iskender and Smith’s Millat are spotlighted for their similarities. They both are the young, charismatic and handsome hanging out with English girls. They both are ‘protest’ characters. Şafak’s Esma and Smith’s both are in search of identity, and vaguely they lack the sense of belonging. They are the in-betweeners of the novel. Nevertheless, in general the Shafak’s characters are mostly dynamic who develop themselves through change in mood and mind, whereas White Teeth consists of static figures. The characters except Millat (to a certain degree) remain almost the same through out the novel. When it comes to the plot, the order and sequence or knitting are completely different. In Shafak’s Honour, the novel starts from the end with the technique of metafiction through Esma’s words, who is the narrator. Although the main narrator seems to be Esma, one of the major and static character of the novel, the other characters also tell the story from their points of view. The events have not been sequenced in a linear timeline. They are intertwined. The events in the story does not follow rising action, contrary to the usual order of the elements that construct a plot (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution), the novel starts with the resolution. The novel starts with Iskender’s being released from the prison, the last section of the novel. Overall, the novel is narrated through such techniques as flashback, flashforward, skips and summations. The action that rises up to the climax starts with Pembe’s seeing a man named Elias and reaches the climax when Jamila is murdered instead of Pembe. The tension of Iskender’s internal conflicts seems to be resolved as seen through his letter to his mother whom he believes to be alive. In Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, the plot starts with Archie’s commitment to a suicide because his wife Ophelia has divorced him, and later develops around the members of three families, Jones, Ikbal, and Chalfen. It goes on in a regular form of an ordinary novel that follows exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. The storyteller is a neutral unknown third person who has a supercilious and omniscient approach. Unlike the serious and neutral narrator in Honour, White Teeth’s narrator seems more witty and cynical. The topics of the plot might sound similar, but when approached holistically

Özet

1971 de Fransa'nın Strasburg şehrinde doğan Elif Şafak ulusal ve uluslar arası ödüller almış ünlü bir roman yazarı olarak tanınır. Türkiye'de en çok okunan kadın yazar olarak bilinmekle beraber romanlarını hem İngilizce hem de Türkçe olarak yazar. Çoğu best-seller olan dokuz roman yazmış; bu romanlar kırktan fazla dile çevrilmiştir. 2011 yazında yayımlanan İskender adlı romanının Zadie Smith'in Türkçeye de çevrilen Beyaz Dişler adlı romanıyla fazla benzerlik taşıdığı ileri sürülerek intihal yapmakla suçlandı. Her iki roman incelendiğinde her ne kadar bazı benzerlikler gözlense de, öte yandan roman bileşenleri açısından farklılıklar da gözlenmiştir. Benzer temaları işleyen romanlar, benzer sorunlarla uğraşan benzer karakterlere sahip olabilir. Başka bir deyişle roman sanatında tematik benzerlikler kaçınılmazdır. Bu nedenlerle, bu makale close reading (yapısalcı okuma) tekniği ile, intihal (plagiarism) teriminin akademik makaleler dışındaki edebi eserler için ne ifade ettiğini de göz önüne alarak, her iki roman arasındaki farklılık ve benzerlikleri ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. Yani bir başka deyişle her iki roman, zaman-mekan, konu, karakter, tema, ve bakış açısı gibi romanın yapı taşları olarak varsayılan edebi öğeler açısından detaylı bir okumayla karşılaştırılacaktır