Abstract
KİRALIK KONAK FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF FOUCAULT’S POWER AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
This study intends to examine the novel Kiralık Konak by Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu from the perespective of Michel Focault, a philosopher, social theorist, literary critic, historian of ideas. The concepts power, freedom, resistance and discourse developed by Foucault were related to sociological events and characters in the novel. The subjects appearing as mad, guilty, homeless and poor in Foucault’s theory and the way these subjects were grappled with were associated with the European-style characters in the novel. From the perspective of Foucault, the European style characters disconnected from the conventional and trational Ottoman Empire were depicted as incongrous in the novel. These European-style characters were interprered as incongrous and othered by the bureaucrats, authors, literary critics and sociologists in Turkish society. This study interpreted these European-style characters as positive and liberating characters in terms of Ottoman society’s questioning itself. In addition, the fact that the European style characters could not find a place for themselves in the society caused them to flee to Europ, which can be interpreted as a kind of confinement. Therefore, the European-style characters strove to object to prevalent power discourses and values by their lifestyles and acts which can be commented as a kind of resistance. However, these characters were dubbed and labelled as snobs or betrayers and punished by the dominant power. Whereas these European style characters can be assessed as an opportunity and possibility for the society to change and transform and question itself, they are othered, confined abroad and punished by the novel author.
Keywords
Kiralık Konak, power , discourse , modernization, European stlye
