STURCTURE AND THEME IN PEYAMI SAFA’S YALNIZIZ NOVEL

Abstract

In this article Peyami Safa's Yalnızız novel was analized in terms of structure and themes. According to the narrative technique, it is explained in terms of the techniques, point of view, event patterns, characters, space and time. The preparation of the character's role and the other elements in the novel have been dealt with the three main events of braids forming. We considerated three basic parts of the novel as well. The loneliness like matrix of existentialism, was taken over as the main theme of the novel. Peyami Safa's Yalnızız novel showes the negative effects of the Second World War in Turkey, as it is on its name. By understanding, the fact that modernization is westernization is breaking away from its own essence, moving away from its traditions and customs. Especially, the Turkish women who could not live the existential evolution freely lived the extreme point of they loneliness. It’s nessesary to underline that westernization meant not only breaking away from its own traditions and customs and imitating the West, but also by experiencing the indigenous culture and life in which the modernity of the West was also included. Because of it, while existentialism is experienced in its own natural way in the Western world, the imitation of the West makes it inevitable to experience the problematic, comfortable for Turkey. In this context, the writer retains the loneliness of man by the existentialist approach. At the same time he also tells us that man is not alone, and that it is possible to return to man's own essence, traditions and customs by giving them the clues of loneliness. As long as man has to return to his own culture. If man could not set within himself in every sense, he could not live. In this respect, the death in the novel is showed as a symbol of a rebirth. In other words, a person has to die in order to find his own self. In this context, it is a cultural novel that deals with the existential problem of humanity, the various possibilities of life, and the criticism of cultural values, rather than the soul-body conflict After the Second World War, the disintegration of roots and the misinterpretation of Westernization in Istanbul was caused alienating from self and common values in society. The novel Yalnızız showed how this values echoed in individuals. However, the novel do not showed just dualistic consepts, how its used to understanding: east/west, soul/body, truth/lie, sincerity/forgery, loyalty/betrayal, and do not prepares the characters on this ground by using ideological symbolism, but it focused on individuality and humanism. If we perceive the novel as an ideological novel as it is said,we should to perceive that the main characters are symbolized of soul-body conflict: Meral is symbol of materialism, and Samim is the spiritualism. Milan Kundera draws attention to a characteristic of the novel: "On the one hand, there is a novel in which the historical dimension of human existence is examined, on the other side there is a historical novel, a description of a society at a certain time, a novelistic historical writer". As for the novel Yalnızız, it is a humanistic novel, as the author put it. Thus, the novel is built on existential possibilities and in this respect, examines the historical dimension of human existence (Kundera, 2012: 43, 50). Because, the main character Samim is not only representative of East or spiritual values. From a cultural point of view, emphasizing God as an inevitable end, and Samim's mystical Eastern Simeranya are emphasizing Eastern cultures, the Meral’s Paris adventure emphasizes Western cultures with its abandoned human beings. However, this duality is not concretized sharply like kart characters. Samim, is a character who is loyal to his spiritual values and able to construct hisself, but also is capable of making mistakes, as well as being able to be specific to every human condition; rather than a symbol of a particular concept. Just, we can only be said that the existence of Samim are: honesty, loyalty and humanity. Peyami Safa's novel consists of three parts, which we can divide into three main events: a) I. Section: Enlightenment of the main character Samim; b) II. Section: Meral's internal conflict. c) III. Section: Meral's death. Samim, striving to solve the issues within the family, writes Simeranya as a resort for this in the first part and in the second part he is tasked to help Meral. In other words, in the first part he faces Selmin's mother’s doubts about Samim and her desire to take revenge from her fiancé named Ferhat while in the second part he encounters Meral’s existentially not being at peace with herself and her pursuit for herself. The alienation theme in both parts develops in two different ways: the alienation in the first part gives harm to other humans’ realm of existence by the self-confidence people have to themselves (Human’s alienation threatening other humans’ realm of existence with a selfish and arrogant confidence); the alienation in the second part causes harm to a person himself arising from his fight with himself. In this context, we can say that the main theme of the novel is alienation (alienation due to the harm a human gives to himself arising from his fight with himself). A human’s alienation by being away to his humanistic values while he is in pursuit of himself is the main theme of the entire novel. Alienation and self-creation arise from the feeling of a big lack of self-confidence or from the feeling of inadequateness. For example, the story of false pregnancy which Selmin has fabricated with a view to show her independence against her mother is actually a deep feeling of inferiority she feels about herself. As such, this feeling that the characters have in the novel brings lying, doubt, revenge and racism with itself. After the first part which paves the way for the conflict between Samim and Meral in terms of the course of events, it is clearly observed in the second part th

Özet

Bu çalışmada Peyami Safa'nın Yalnızız romanı yapı ve izlek açısından incelenmiştir. Roman teorisine göre anlatma tekniği, bakış açısı, olay örgüleri, karakterler, mekan ve zaman gibi kriterler izlekler ve kavramlar çerçevesinde açıklanmıştır. Hem karakterin rolüne hazırlanışı hem de diğer romandaki unsurlar romanın üç ana bölümünü oluşturan üç ana olay örgüsü altında ele alınmıştır. Romanın ana izleği olarak yalnızlık varoluşçuluğun ana çekirdeği babında incelenmiştir. Peyami Safa'nın Yalnızız romanı, adı da üzerinde olduğu gibi, Türkiye'de İkinci dünya savaşının getirdiği olumsuz etkileri ele alır. Modernleşmenin batılılaşma olduğunu anlamakla kendi özünden kopan, gelenek ve göreneklerine uzaklayan, ayrıca özgür olarak varoluşsal evrimini yaşayamayan Türk kadını, yalnızlığının uç noktasını yaşar. Yani batılılaşmak, kendi gelenek ve göreneklerinden kopup Batı'yı taklit etmekle değil, Batı'nın modernliğinin de yer verildiği yerli kültürün ve yaşamın yaşanılmasıydı kastedilen. Dolayısıyla, varoluşçuluk Batı dünyasında kendi doğal akışıyla yaşanırken, Batı'nın taklit edilmesi sorunsalı zorunlu olarak Türkiye'de de yaşanılmasını kaçınılmaz yapar. Bu bağlamda, varoluşçu yaklaşımla insanın yalnızlığını kaleme alan yazar, aynı zamanda insanın aslında yalnız olmadığını ve yalnızlıktan kurtulmanın ip uçlarını vererek insanın kendi özüne, gelenek ve göreneklerine dönmekle mümkün olduğunu da söyler. Yeter ki, insan kendi kültürüne dönmelidir. Çünkü, insan her anlamda kendi içinde oturamadıysa yaşamayı sürdüremez. Bu açıdan romandaki ölüm, bir yeniden doğuşun simgesi olarak ortaya çıkar. Diğer bir ifadeyle, insanın kendi özünü bulması için ölmesi gerekirdir. Bu bağlamda Yalnızız romanı ruh-beden çatışmasını anlatmaktan çok insanın varoluşsal sorununu, hayatın çeşitli olabilirliklerini ve aynı zamanda kültürel değerlerin eleştirmesini ele alan kültürel romandır