Görkem Neşe ŞENEL | Niğde Ömer Halisdemir Üniversitesi / Nigde Omer Halisdemir University (original) (raw)
Papers by Görkem Neşe ŞENEL
Modernism and Postmodernism Studies Network
.
Abstract: Criticizing his contemporary market and messaging theatres, Barker stands for an anti-d... more Abstract: Criticizing his contemporary market and messaging theatres, Barker stands for an anti-didactic, anti-illusionist, anti-realist and non-ideological tradition of drama, which is open to multiple interpretations of the audience. In his play Scenes from an Execution, through characterization, narration, plot development and general course of the play, his theatre of catastrophe distinctively manifests itself, revealing Barker’s main attitudes towards an alternative theatre. This paper aims to examine the manifestation of Howard Barker’s Theatre of Catastrophe and the catastrophic elements in his work Scenes from an Execution. Theatre of Catastrophe is a term coined by Howard Barker, who is an influential contemporary British playwright and poet, to describe his own specific work, which explores violence, sexuality, power desire and human motivation. The paper also aims to examine the manifestation of Howard Barker, himself in his own play as the embodiment of the character Galactia. The main character of the play Galactia, who is an artist that contravenes with her contemporary artists due to their governmentally co-opted arts, can actually be interpreted as the biographic reflection of Barker, who opposes his own contemporary dramatists due to their ideologically shaped dramas. Keywords: Barker, Theatre of Catastrophe, Scenes from an Execution, Galactia
This thesis study aims to analyze the poetry of two female poets who committed suicide, Sylvia Pl... more This thesis study aims to analyze the poetry of two female poets who committed suicide, Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara, within the context of the psychoanalytical perspectives to death and self-destruction. By rendering a psychoanalytical analysis of their poetical lines that are intermingled with pains and traumas centered around the obsession of death and self-destruction, this study attempts to trace and unearth the mutual poetical mechanisms of the unconscious and the human psyche that turn the poetry of both poets into ‘art of dying’ as in the wording of Plath and ‘swan songs’ as in the wording of Marmara. Emphasizing the undeniable attachment between Plath and Marmara, this study also investigates how the poetry of the American poet, Plath, as a predecessor has influenced the poetry of the Turkish poet, Marmara, as a successor and how their poetical approaches to death and suicide display resemblance, parallels and contrasts. By rendering a comparative analysis within the con...
This thesis study aims to analyze the poetry of two female poets who committed suicide, Sylvia Pl... more This thesis study aims to analyze the poetry of two female poets who committed suicide, Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara, within the context of the psychoanalytical perspectives to death and self-destruction. By rendering a psychoanalytical analysis of their poetical lines that are intermingled with pains and traumas centered around the obsession of death and self-destruction, this study attempts to trace and unearth the mutual poetical mechanisms of the unconscious and the human psyche that turn the poetry of both poets into ‘art of dying’ as in the wording of Plath and ‘swan songs’ as in the wording of Marmara. Emphasizing the undeniable attachment between Plath and Marmara, this study also investigates how the poetry of the American poet, Plath, as a predecessor has influenced the poetry of the Turkish poet, Marmara, as a successor and how their poetical approaches to death and suicide display resemblance, parallels and contrasts. By rendering a comparative analysis within the context of suicide, this thesis also aims to reflect that although their social and cultural contexts may vary, both female poets manifest that poetry has been a distinct sphere of both isolation and confrontation with the various psychic ‘demons’ inherent in their self-alienated poetical personas. Through psychoanalyzing their poetic personas in their ‘art of dying’, this study attempts to highlight how Plath and Marmara became both the victims and the victors of their poetry via various psychological scars and existential dilemmas. Keywords: death, suicide, psychoanalysis, poetry, Sylvia Plath, Nilgün Marmara.
Journal of Language and Literature Education, 2014
A Postcolonial Reading of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysRes. Asst. Neşe ŞenelErciyes University, ... more A Postcolonial Reading of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysRes. Asst. Neşe ŞenelErciyes University, nesesenel@erciyes.edu.trAbstractDespite the fact that the story retold in Wide Sargasso Sea on the surface seems to be a pathetic love story of a Creole woman who goes crazy due to unrequited love in hermarriage to an English man, through a close postcolonial reading of the novel severalcrucial cultural and political orientalist attitudes towards Creole people, Europe’salternative and potential “other,” are depicted. “Orientalism, in Said’s formulation, isprincipally a way of defining and ‘locating’ Europe’s others”. Accordingly, within thecontext of this paper, the other version of the story of “the othered” will be examinedfrom a post colonialist perception through the representations of the charactersespecially, that of Mr. Rochester. His orientalist and “othering” attitude towardsAntoinette and the Creole way of life in the Caribbean and the related crucial identityproblems of Antoinette will be discussed within the framework of this postcolonialreading on Wide Sargasso Sea.Key Words: postcolonialism, orientalism, postmodern paroody, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane Eyre</p
Drawing the framework of the hierarchies among masculinities and elaborating on the theory of heg... more Drawing the framework of the hierarchies among masculinities and elaborating on the theory of hegemonic masculinity, this study attempts to analyze the journey and the transformation from hegemonic masculinity into masculinity crisis of the protagonists of two crucial films of two distinct cultures, The Game (1997) and Mustafa Hakkında Her Şey (Everything About Mustafa) (2004). Within this study through a close exploration of the troublesome and curios stories of both Nicholas and Mustafa, their failure of the idealized masculinity models, that is, the modes of the hegemonic masculinity and their specific masculinity crisis will be attempted to be analyzed.
JOMOPS Journal Of Modernism And Postmodernism Studies, 2022
It is an undeniable fact that the loss of the father at an early age is an indispensable poetical... more It is an undeniable fact that the loss of the father at an early age is an indispensable poetical pattern for Sylvia Plath’s confessional and suicidal poetry wherein an ambivalent paternal love and hate relationship surfaces. Her obsession with paternal absence and her dedication to committing suicide lead her to describe death as ‘an art’ in “Lady Lazarus” (1962) and later cause her to utter the desire to kill her father in the poem, “Daddy” (1962). Most interestingly, within her overall poetry, the ambivalent attitude of Plath’s poetic persona towards both death and the paternal figure casts parallels and often overlaps since Plath’s poetic persona reflects a Freudian melancholic and an interrupted mourner with an unaccomplished Electra complex. This paper aims to discuss Plath’s associated dominant poetical ambivalence towards the father figure and her relational death-oriented and self-destructive poetic tone within the Freudian psychoanalytical frameworks of Electra complex and mourning and melancholia. Thus, elaborating on these crucial Freudian insights, Plath’s monumental poem “Little Fugue” (1962) will be psychoanalyzed.
Keywords: Psychoanalysis, Freud, Electra complex, mourning, melancholia, Sylvia Plath, poetry.
The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies, 2016
Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the leading British modernist novelists. Woolf, with her rad... more Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the leading British modernist novelists. Woolf, with her radical innovation and experimental styles, can also be acknowledged as the precursor of postmodernism. This paper aims to discuss Woolf`s the most challenging and innovative novel The Waves as a novel bearing postmodernist novel features although it is categorized as a modern novel. Woolf employs the very postmodernist techniques such as intertextuality, metafictionality and pastische. She rejects not only the established literary traditions of the earlier periods but also the socio-cultural values and sets out to come up with something novel to provide insights into the psychology of the characters to examine their reactions against the absence of stability, order, continuity and wholeness. Woolf exposes the voices of six characters, which calls into question the concepts such as unchangeable and timeless truth, objective reality and meaning. The Waves does not offer characters who are whole and knowable; rather, they are characterized by fragmentation, discontinuity, and multiplicity which are preferred in postmodern literature to the ideology of unity and continuity. The characters pursue an existential quest to be complete, whole, stable and solid but this quest results in failure and the characters have gained the postmodern awareness that self is not single, unique and unified but many, fluid and in constant process.
This thesis analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing ... more This thesis analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing from ecofeminist viewpoints by specifically examining the interconnections between women and nature in both future-societies. Essentially, ecofeminism is a radical literary theory and a political movement based on ecology and a sub-branch of ecocriticism, which proclaims that the subjugation of the females and the exploitation of nature are all interrelated stratums conducted by a prevailing masculine mindset; thus, this radical ecological criticism necessitates the analyses of these interconnected oppressions. According to the ecofeminist understanding, the patriarchy exerts and maintains its power and domination by making use of authoritative power structures that are based on dualisms like human/nature, men/women, nature/culture. Thus, ecofeminists attempt to destroy all the established dualities and they disseminate ecologically informed societies where equality and liberation are maintained for all genders. This study explores the specific ecofeminist themes prevalent within Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing. These novels trace the connections between gender, nature, femininity, masculinity, sexuality, religion and science. While the dystopic fiction of Atwood offers a catastrophic social order that reflects the fallacy of the modern man regarding his oppressive attitude towards nature and women, Starhawk’s ecotopia, on the other hand, proposes an ecotopia where all species, genders, the human and nonhuman communities live in equality, peace and harmony. Both fictions, thus, focus on the issues of women and nature and signal an ecofeminist message by reflecting that if the society does not change its patriarchal, hierarchal and mostly androcentric approach towards women and nature, the environmental crisis and gender-based discrimination will be sustained forever.
Bu calisma, erkeklikler arasinda var olan hiyerarsilerin genel bir cercevesini cizerek ve hegemon... more Bu calisma, erkeklikler arasinda var olan hiyerarsilerin genel bir cercevesini cizerek ve hegemonik erkeklik kuramini detaylandirarak, iki farkli kulture ait The Game ( Oyun ) (1997) ve Mustafa Hakkinda Her Şey (2004) filmlerinin ana karakterlerinin hegemonik erkeklikten erkeklik krizine yolculuklarini ve donusumlerini incelemeye girismektedir. Bu calismada, hem Nicholas’in hem de Mustafa’nin zorlu ve ilginc hikayeleri yakindan kesfedilerek, her iki karakterin de idealize edilmis erkeklik modellerindeki yani hegemonik erkekliklerindeki basarisizliklari ve kendilerine ozgu erkeklik krizleri analiz edilmeye calisilacaktir.
Book of Proceedings 13th International Language, Literature and Stylistics Symposium: Simple Style, 2013
Abstract: Criticizing his contemporary market and messaging theatres, Barker stands for an anti-d... more Abstract: Criticizing his contemporary market and messaging theatres, Barker stands for an anti-didactic, anti-illusionist, anti-realist and non-ideological tradition of drama, which is open to multiple interpretations of the audience. In his play Scenes from an Execution, through characterization, narration, plot development and general course of the play, his theatre of catastrophe distinctively manifests itself, revealing Barker’s main attitudes towards an alternative theatre. This paper aims to examine the manifestation of Howard Barker’s Theatre of Catastrophe and the catastrophic elements in his work Scenes from an Execution. Theatre of Catastrophe is a term coined by Howard Barker, who is an influential contemporary British playwright and poet, to describe his own specific work, which explores violence, sexuality, power desire and human motivation. The paper also aims to examine the manifestation of Howard Barker, himself in his own play as the embodiment of the character Galactia. The main character of the play Galactia, who is an artist that contravenes with her contemporary artists due to their governmentally co-opted arts, can actually be interpreted as the biographic reflection of Barker, who opposes his own contemporary dramatists due to their ideologically shaped dramas.
Keywords: Barker, Theatre of Catastrophe, Scenes from an Execution, Galactia
Masculinities Journal, 2017
Drawing the framework of the hierarchies among masculinities and elaborating on the theory of heg... more Drawing the framework of the hierarchies among masculinities and elaborating on the theory of hegemonic masculinity, this study attempts to analyze the journey and the transformation from hegemonic masculinity into masculinity crisis of the protagonists of two crucial films of two distinct cultures, The Game (1997) and Mustafa Hakkında Her Şey (Everything About Mustafa) (2004). Within this study through a close exploration of the troublesome and curios stories of both Nicholas and Mustafa, their failure of the idealized masculinity models, that is, the modes of the hegemonic masculinity and their specific masculinity crisis will be attempted to be analyzed.
Keywords: hegemonic masculinity, masculinity crisis, film studies, The Game, Everything About Mustafa.
Totally different from the traditional forms, In-yer- face theatre is mostly referred as a new br... more Totally different from the traditional forms, In-yer- face theatre is mostly referred as a new breath in the provocative drama, in which the audience is made to go through the shocking experience of the mix of sex, violence and street poetry on the stage. Being more than a collection of experimental and provocative shock-tactics, this collection of plays is the consistent critique of modern life and the problems of their time; therefore, the plays unavoidably question the problems of violence, masculinity, post-feminism and consumerism. As the in-yer- face sensibility, which has boomed in the 90s, was being collectively shaped through the challenging and outstanding forms in the British theatre since the 50s, the same provocative and confrontational sensibility was also being gradually shaped from the other-side of the ocean, within the New World by the American playwrights with their unique treatment of the ‘extremities’ with the extreme language on the stage. Thus, this paper attempts to analyse and scrutinize the very in-yer- face sensibility within the American context through Amir Baraka’s Toilet (1964) and Holly Hughes’s Dress Suits to Hire (1987) by discovering how the concepts of sex, violence, homosexuality and blatant language have constructed the new inner voice as the extremity of provocative and confrontational theatre. Keywords: In-yer-face Theatre, sex, violence, homosexuality, masculinity.
This stylistic study attempts to examine the concept of inbetweenness experienced by two distinct... more This stylistic study attempts to examine the concept of inbetweenness experienced by two distinct ethnic identities, Chinese and Indian, as reflected by two ethnic female American authors with their specific treatment of language. Inbetweenness, caused mostly by migration, is the inevitable dilemma of being ‘the other’ among a dominant homogenous whole. When the deviance between traditional experience, attributed to the minority groups such as immigrants, and the modernity, attributed to the dominant society, hugely contrasts, the margins are usually ascribed the position of backwardness and inferiority. Inevitably, the differences cause a version of dichotomist discourse in which the traditional versus the modern. Such a dichotomist variation causes the minority groups to go through identity crisis heightened by rootlessness and inbetweenness. Within this study, tracing the specific cultural, gender-related and generational gaps between the ethnic identities, an Indian-American short story collection and a Chinese-American novel will be examined with specifically identifying how the dilemma of ‘inbetweenness’ is manifested by the author’s genuine treatment of language. Unaccustomed Earth (2008) reflects the problems of identity crisis and cultural clash caused by the sense of macro-level inbetweenness of Indian immigrants within the America of the 1970s. The Good Earth (1931), on the other hand, reveals the heroic story of a Chinese family’s dedication to rural China, and their sense of micro-level inbetweenness when the family is politically forced to live in the urban city. Both fictions reflect similarly parallel concerns regarding gender, ethnicity, cultural clash, identity crisis and generational gap. Evenly, the ‘earth’ that is referred as ‘good’ within Chinese context becomes ‘unaccustomed’ within the Indian context when the ethnic characters lose their sense of belonging and ethnic identities.
Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the leading British modernist novelists. Woolf, with her rad... more Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the leading British modernist novelists. Woolf, with her radical innovation and experimental styles, can also be acknowledged as the precursor of postmodernism. This paper aims to discuss Woolf`s the most challenging and innovative novel The Waves as a novel bearing postmodernist novel features although it is categorized as a modern novel. Woolf employs the very postmodernist techniques such as intertextuality, metafictionality and pastische. She rejects not only the established literary traditions of the earlier periods but also the socio-cultural values and sets out to come up with something novel to provide insights into the psychology of the characters to examine their reactions against the absence of stability, order, continuity and wholeness. Woolf exposes the voices of six characters, which calls into question the concepts such as unchangeable and timeless truth, objective reality and meaning. The Waves does not offer characters who are whole and knowable; rather, they are characterized by fragmentation, discontinuity, and multiplicity which are preferred in postmo-dern literature to the ideology of unity and continuity. The characters pursue an existen-tial quest to be complete, whole, stable and solid but this quest results in failure and the characters have gained the postmodern awareness that self is not single, unique and unified but many, fluid and in constant process.
Despite the fact that the story retold in Wide Sargasso Sea on the surface seems to be a pathetic... more Despite the fact that the story retold in Wide Sargasso Sea on the surface seems to be a
pathetic love story of a Creole woman who goes crazy due to unrequited love in her
marriage to an English man, through a close postcolonial reading of the novel several
crucial cultural and political orientalist attitudes towards Creole people, Europe’s
alternative and potential “other,” are depicted. “Orientalism, in Said’s formulation, is
principally a way of defining and ‘locating’ Europe’s others”. Accordingly, within the
context of this paper, the other version of the story of “the othered” will be examined
from a post colonialist perception through the representations of the characters
especially, that of Mr. Rochester. His orientalist and “othering” attitude towards
Antoinette and the Creole way of life in the Caribbean and the related crucial identity
problems of Antoinette will be discussed within the framework of this postcolonial
reading on Wide Sargasso Sea.
Key Words: postcolonialism, orientalism, postmodern paroody, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane
Eyre
Books by Görkem Neşe ŞENEL
DIVERSIFYING FEMINISMS IN THE LITERARY WORLD, 2023
Within the framework of Feminist Psychoanalysis of Julia Kristeva, this study aims to trace the s... more Within the framework of Feminist Psychoanalysis of Julia Kristeva, this study aims to trace the subversive feminist pattern of the daughter-speaker within the selected poetry of Sylvia Plath. Puzzling the conventional patriarchal myths on such concepts as femininity and maternity, Plath’s poetry adroitly denounces the so-called values of universality and constructed reality of the patriarchal discourse; meanwhile, she also reveals her poetic pursuit for non-patriarchal and non-hierarchal paths instead of these covenants. Her poetry basically rejects any idea of self which is preestablished, stable and stagnant. Emphasizing the absence of female subjectivity and experience within patriarchal domains, her poetry signals the disturbed mother-daughter relationship as a crucial dimension of this denial. Her poems usually expose the tendency of her poetic persona to go back to the semiotic order, where the daughter is peacefully united and bonded with the maternal figure without the thread of the symbolic order, where the patriarchal codes rest. Consequently, through her poetry, Plath’s poetical persona usually reveals a poetical pattern of attitude that casts a strong resistance to the language, the Name of the Father, the symbolic order and the pre-set rules, which altogether seem to encapsulate her own existence. Then, Plath’s daughter-speaker makes use of the very same language, which initially had persecuted and devoured her, in order to persecute both the father, the symbolic order and eventually death, therein her persona turns out to be self-destructive. Thus, her speaker sometimes goes as extreme as figuratively killing the father, as seen in “Daddy”. All the same, it is not only the father figure that is counter-attacked, but also the language of the father, the symbolic order and the violence it casts are also confronted with the similar degree of ferocity. In this way, Plath’s poetic persona makes use of the persecuting apparatus in metaphorically murdering the demonic father and ‘the vampire’, the father-like husband and eventually the patriarchy and the language in which she is made create her art of dying. Furthermore, these Kristevan concepts of resisting and attacking the language of the father and the paternal discourse and also persecuting the persecutor through its own apparatus, are also intensified by the interrupted Electra complex and unaccomplished mourning processes of Plath’s poetic persona. Inevitably, as she resists and then attacks on the symbolic order through its own means and casts a return to the semiotic order and the womb in order to get united with the mother, Plath’s daughter-speaker turns out to be self-destructive in achieving this impossible mission. Relatedly, this study aims to trace and analyze this subversive Kristevan pattern of Plath’s poetical persona meticulous woven in her ‘Art of Dying’, her confessional and suicidal canvas of poetry. To this end, through their dominant theme of ‘resisting and then persecuting the persecutor’, Plath’s “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus” and “Medusa” will be psychoanalyzed within the context of Kristevan Feminist Psychoanalysis. Keywords: Confessional Poetry, Sylvia Plath, Feminist Psychoanalysis, Julia Kristeva.
The Art of Dying within the Swan Songs: A Comparative Analysis of Death and Suicide Within the Poetry of Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara, 2023
Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara… Two female poets of distinct geographies, cultures, societies an... more Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara… Two female poets of distinct geographies, cultures, societies and periods followed a life with distinct sufferings and scars, but they produced similar poetries with the same wish and outcry for death. And in the end, both poets said their last words in the face of life through suicide. Indeed, there is this passionate bridge between these two poets since Marmara was a keen admirer of Plath’s poetry and art. And today, standing on this very bridge, this book renders a detailed comparative reading and analysis on their poetry within the context of the psychoanalytical perspectives to death and self-destruction. Through the psychoanalysis of their poetical lines that are intermingled with pains and traumas centered around the obsession of death and self-destruction, this book traces and unearths the mutual poetical mechanisms of the unconscious and the human psyche that turn the poetry of both poets into ‘art of dying’ as in the wording of Plath and ‘swan songs’ as in the wording of Marmara. Psychoanalyzing their poetic personas in their ‘art of dying’, this book highlights how Plath and Marmara became both the victims and the victors of their ‘swans songs’ via various psychological scars and existential dilemmas.
This ecofeminist study analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale by specifically examining t... more This ecofeminist study analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale by specifically examining the interconnections between women and nature drawn through the past memories of a dystopic era. Essentially, ecofeminism is a radical literary theory based on ecology and a sub-brach of ecocriticism, which proclaims that the oppression of women and the subjugation of nature are all interrelated stratums conducted by a prevailing masculine mindset; thus, this radical ecological criticism necessitates the analyses of these interconnected oppressions. According to the ecofeminist understanding the patriarchy exerts and maintains its power and domination by making use of authoritative power structures that are based on dualisms like human/nature, men/women, nature/culture. Thus, ecofeminists attempt to destroy all the established dualities and they disseminate ecologically informed societies where equality and liberation is maintained for all genders. By adopting such an ecofeminist stance, this study aims to explore the memories of Offred and the community of Gilead in order to unearth the connections between gender, nature, femininity, masculinity, sexuality, religion and science. Moreover, the role of the memory in constructing these polarized connections is to be questioned. Offred’s memory and re-memory of the dystopic regime of Gilead offer a catastrophic social order that reflects the fallacy of the modern man regarding his oppressive attitude towards nature and women.
Keywords: ecofeminism, women, nature, ecology, gender, memory, rememory, non-human world, dystopia.
The current conventional film industry produced in an atmosphere where the subconscious of the do... more The current conventional film industry produced in an atmosphere where the subconscious of the dominant patriarchal ideology rules over, manifests a fantasy world of images and representations in which both the creator and receiver of the product is a male heterosexual mind-set. Inevitably, the patriarchal cultural and social codes of power impact, shape and construct the social experience of gazing and looking, which causes the gaze to get masculinised, excluding the feminine and queer experience. The female body on the visual media is, thus, rendered into the status of the erotic object of desire to satisfy and please the male gaze owner, or the power holder within the movie and also among the spectators. From the framework of the dichotomy of the masculine and the feminine, while men on the screen are reflected as the perfect surveyors, the power owners, the active gazers and the creators of the meaning; the women, on the other hand are usually the erotic objects of desires who are passive and silenced characters that do not create the meaning but can only bear it through her body. Apart from the exceptional types, through the images and representations as the hyper-realities, most conventional film industry governed by the dominant patriarchal power structures, subconsciously directs, constructs and applies the predominant male gaze in accordance with the prevalent cultural codes of the society. Accordingly, in this study, dwelling from the theories of John Berger, Laura Mulvey and Michel Foucault, two cinematic forms, an Alfred Hitchcock film, The Rear Window (1954) and a Peter Cattaneo film, The Full Monty (1997) will be examined by specifically focussing on how the mind-set governing the ways of seeing and pleasure in looking at the bodies are constructed.
Modernism and Postmodernism Studies Network
.
Abstract: Criticizing his contemporary market and messaging theatres, Barker stands for an anti-d... more Abstract: Criticizing his contemporary market and messaging theatres, Barker stands for an anti-didactic, anti-illusionist, anti-realist and non-ideological tradition of drama, which is open to multiple interpretations of the audience. In his play Scenes from an Execution, through characterization, narration, plot development and general course of the play, his theatre of catastrophe distinctively manifests itself, revealing Barker’s main attitudes towards an alternative theatre. This paper aims to examine the manifestation of Howard Barker’s Theatre of Catastrophe and the catastrophic elements in his work Scenes from an Execution. Theatre of Catastrophe is a term coined by Howard Barker, who is an influential contemporary British playwright and poet, to describe his own specific work, which explores violence, sexuality, power desire and human motivation. The paper also aims to examine the manifestation of Howard Barker, himself in his own play as the embodiment of the character Galactia. The main character of the play Galactia, who is an artist that contravenes with her contemporary artists due to their governmentally co-opted arts, can actually be interpreted as the biographic reflection of Barker, who opposes his own contemporary dramatists due to their ideologically shaped dramas. Keywords: Barker, Theatre of Catastrophe, Scenes from an Execution, Galactia
This thesis study aims to analyze the poetry of two female poets who committed suicide, Sylvia Pl... more This thesis study aims to analyze the poetry of two female poets who committed suicide, Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara, within the context of the psychoanalytical perspectives to death and self-destruction. By rendering a psychoanalytical analysis of their poetical lines that are intermingled with pains and traumas centered around the obsession of death and self-destruction, this study attempts to trace and unearth the mutual poetical mechanisms of the unconscious and the human psyche that turn the poetry of both poets into ‘art of dying’ as in the wording of Plath and ‘swan songs’ as in the wording of Marmara. Emphasizing the undeniable attachment between Plath and Marmara, this study also investigates how the poetry of the American poet, Plath, as a predecessor has influenced the poetry of the Turkish poet, Marmara, as a successor and how their poetical approaches to death and suicide display resemblance, parallels and contrasts. By rendering a comparative analysis within the con...
This thesis study aims to analyze the poetry of two female poets who committed suicide, Sylvia Pl... more This thesis study aims to analyze the poetry of two female poets who committed suicide, Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara, within the context of the psychoanalytical perspectives to death and self-destruction. By rendering a psychoanalytical analysis of their poetical lines that are intermingled with pains and traumas centered around the obsession of death and self-destruction, this study attempts to trace and unearth the mutual poetical mechanisms of the unconscious and the human psyche that turn the poetry of both poets into ‘art of dying’ as in the wording of Plath and ‘swan songs’ as in the wording of Marmara. Emphasizing the undeniable attachment between Plath and Marmara, this study also investigates how the poetry of the American poet, Plath, as a predecessor has influenced the poetry of the Turkish poet, Marmara, as a successor and how their poetical approaches to death and suicide display resemblance, parallels and contrasts. By rendering a comparative analysis within the context of suicide, this thesis also aims to reflect that although their social and cultural contexts may vary, both female poets manifest that poetry has been a distinct sphere of both isolation and confrontation with the various psychic ‘demons’ inherent in their self-alienated poetical personas. Through psychoanalyzing their poetic personas in their ‘art of dying’, this study attempts to highlight how Plath and Marmara became both the victims and the victors of their poetry via various psychological scars and existential dilemmas. Keywords: death, suicide, psychoanalysis, poetry, Sylvia Plath, Nilgün Marmara.
Journal of Language and Literature Education, 2014
A Postcolonial Reading of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysRes. Asst. Neşe ŞenelErciyes University, ... more A Postcolonial Reading of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysRes. Asst. Neşe ŞenelErciyes University, nesesenel@erciyes.edu.trAbstractDespite the fact that the story retold in Wide Sargasso Sea on the surface seems to be a pathetic love story of a Creole woman who goes crazy due to unrequited love in hermarriage to an English man, through a close postcolonial reading of the novel severalcrucial cultural and political orientalist attitudes towards Creole people, Europe’salternative and potential “other,” are depicted. “Orientalism, in Said’s formulation, isprincipally a way of defining and ‘locating’ Europe’s others”. Accordingly, within thecontext of this paper, the other version of the story of “the othered” will be examinedfrom a post colonialist perception through the representations of the charactersespecially, that of Mr. Rochester. His orientalist and “othering” attitude towardsAntoinette and the Creole way of life in the Caribbean and the related crucial identityproblems of Antoinette will be discussed within the framework of this postcolonialreading on Wide Sargasso Sea.Key Words: postcolonialism, orientalism, postmodern paroody, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane Eyre</p
Drawing the framework of the hierarchies among masculinities and elaborating on the theory of heg... more Drawing the framework of the hierarchies among masculinities and elaborating on the theory of hegemonic masculinity, this study attempts to analyze the journey and the transformation from hegemonic masculinity into masculinity crisis of the protagonists of two crucial films of two distinct cultures, The Game (1997) and Mustafa Hakkında Her Şey (Everything About Mustafa) (2004). Within this study through a close exploration of the troublesome and curios stories of both Nicholas and Mustafa, their failure of the idealized masculinity models, that is, the modes of the hegemonic masculinity and their specific masculinity crisis will be attempted to be analyzed.
JOMOPS Journal Of Modernism And Postmodernism Studies, 2022
It is an undeniable fact that the loss of the father at an early age is an indispensable poetical... more It is an undeniable fact that the loss of the father at an early age is an indispensable poetical pattern for Sylvia Plath’s confessional and suicidal poetry wherein an ambivalent paternal love and hate relationship surfaces. Her obsession with paternal absence and her dedication to committing suicide lead her to describe death as ‘an art’ in “Lady Lazarus” (1962) and later cause her to utter the desire to kill her father in the poem, “Daddy” (1962). Most interestingly, within her overall poetry, the ambivalent attitude of Plath’s poetic persona towards both death and the paternal figure casts parallels and often overlaps since Plath’s poetic persona reflects a Freudian melancholic and an interrupted mourner with an unaccomplished Electra complex. This paper aims to discuss Plath’s associated dominant poetical ambivalence towards the father figure and her relational death-oriented and self-destructive poetic tone within the Freudian psychoanalytical frameworks of Electra complex and mourning and melancholia. Thus, elaborating on these crucial Freudian insights, Plath’s monumental poem “Little Fugue” (1962) will be psychoanalyzed.
Keywords: Psychoanalysis, Freud, Electra complex, mourning, melancholia, Sylvia Plath, poetry.
The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies, 2016
Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the leading British modernist novelists. Woolf, with her rad... more Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the leading British modernist novelists. Woolf, with her radical innovation and experimental styles, can also be acknowledged as the precursor of postmodernism. This paper aims to discuss Woolf`s the most challenging and innovative novel The Waves as a novel bearing postmodernist novel features although it is categorized as a modern novel. Woolf employs the very postmodernist techniques such as intertextuality, metafictionality and pastische. She rejects not only the established literary traditions of the earlier periods but also the socio-cultural values and sets out to come up with something novel to provide insights into the psychology of the characters to examine their reactions against the absence of stability, order, continuity and wholeness. Woolf exposes the voices of six characters, which calls into question the concepts such as unchangeable and timeless truth, objective reality and meaning. The Waves does not offer characters who are whole and knowable; rather, they are characterized by fragmentation, discontinuity, and multiplicity which are preferred in postmodern literature to the ideology of unity and continuity. The characters pursue an existential quest to be complete, whole, stable and solid but this quest results in failure and the characters have gained the postmodern awareness that self is not single, unique and unified but many, fluid and in constant process.
This thesis analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing ... more This thesis analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing from ecofeminist viewpoints by specifically examining the interconnections between women and nature in both future-societies. Essentially, ecofeminism is a radical literary theory and a political movement based on ecology and a sub-branch of ecocriticism, which proclaims that the subjugation of the females and the exploitation of nature are all interrelated stratums conducted by a prevailing masculine mindset; thus, this radical ecological criticism necessitates the analyses of these interconnected oppressions. According to the ecofeminist understanding, the patriarchy exerts and maintains its power and domination by making use of authoritative power structures that are based on dualisms like human/nature, men/women, nature/culture. Thus, ecofeminists attempt to destroy all the established dualities and they disseminate ecologically informed societies where equality and liberation are maintained for all genders. This study explores the specific ecofeminist themes prevalent within Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing. These novels trace the connections between gender, nature, femininity, masculinity, sexuality, religion and science. While the dystopic fiction of Atwood offers a catastrophic social order that reflects the fallacy of the modern man regarding his oppressive attitude towards nature and women, Starhawk’s ecotopia, on the other hand, proposes an ecotopia where all species, genders, the human and nonhuman communities live in equality, peace and harmony. Both fictions, thus, focus on the issues of women and nature and signal an ecofeminist message by reflecting that if the society does not change its patriarchal, hierarchal and mostly androcentric approach towards women and nature, the environmental crisis and gender-based discrimination will be sustained forever.
Bu calisma, erkeklikler arasinda var olan hiyerarsilerin genel bir cercevesini cizerek ve hegemon... more Bu calisma, erkeklikler arasinda var olan hiyerarsilerin genel bir cercevesini cizerek ve hegemonik erkeklik kuramini detaylandirarak, iki farkli kulture ait The Game ( Oyun ) (1997) ve Mustafa Hakkinda Her Şey (2004) filmlerinin ana karakterlerinin hegemonik erkeklikten erkeklik krizine yolculuklarini ve donusumlerini incelemeye girismektedir. Bu calismada, hem Nicholas’in hem de Mustafa’nin zorlu ve ilginc hikayeleri yakindan kesfedilerek, her iki karakterin de idealize edilmis erkeklik modellerindeki yani hegemonik erkekliklerindeki basarisizliklari ve kendilerine ozgu erkeklik krizleri analiz edilmeye calisilacaktir.
Book of Proceedings 13th International Language, Literature and Stylistics Symposium: Simple Style, 2013
Abstract: Criticizing his contemporary market and messaging theatres, Barker stands for an anti-d... more Abstract: Criticizing his contemporary market and messaging theatres, Barker stands for an anti-didactic, anti-illusionist, anti-realist and non-ideological tradition of drama, which is open to multiple interpretations of the audience. In his play Scenes from an Execution, through characterization, narration, plot development and general course of the play, his theatre of catastrophe distinctively manifests itself, revealing Barker’s main attitudes towards an alternative theatre. This paper aims to examine the manifestation of Howard Barker’s Theatre of Catastrophe and the catastrophic elements in his work Scenes from an Execution. Theatre of Catastrophe is a term coined by Howard Barker, who is an influential contemporary British playwright and poet, to describe his own specific work, which explores violence, sexuality, power desire and human motivation. The paper also aims to examine the manifestation of Howard Barker, himself in his own play as the embodiment of the character Galactia. The main character of the play Galactia, who is an artist that contravenes with her contemporary artists due to their governmentally co-opted arts, can actually be interpreted as the biographic reflection of Barker, who opposes his own contemporary dramatists due to their ideologically shaped dramas.
Keywords: Barker, Theatre of Catastrophe, Scenes from an Execution, Galactia
Masculinities Journal, 2017
Drawing the framework of the hierarchies among masculinities and elaborating on the theory of heg... more Drawing the framework of the hierarchies among masculinities and elaborating on the theory of hegemonic masculinity, this study attempts to analyze the journey and the transformation from hegemonic masculinity into masculinity crisis of the protagonists of two crucial films of two distinct cultures, The Game (1997) and Mustafa Hakkında Her Şey (Everything About Mustafa) (2004). Within this study through a close exploration of the troublesome and curios stories of both Nicholas and Mustafa, their failure of the idealized masculinity models, that is, the modes of the hegemonic masculinity and their specific masculinity crisis will be attempted to be analyzed.
Keywords: hegemonic masculinity, masculinity crisis, film studies, The Game, Everything About Mustafa.
Totally different from the traditional forms, In-yer- face theatre is mostly referred as a new br... more Totally different from the traditional forms, In-yer- face theatre is mostly referred as a new breath in the provocative drama, in which the audience is made to go through the shocking experience of the mix of sex, violence and street poetry on the stage. Being more than a collection of experimental and provocative shock-tactics, this collection of plays is the consistent critique of modern life and the problems of their time; therefore, the plays unavoidably question the problems of violence, masculinity, post-feminism and consumerism. As the in-yer- face sensibility, which has boomed in the 90s, was being collectively shaped through the challenging and outstanding forms in the British theatre since the 50s, the same provocative and confrontational sensibility was also being gradually shaped from the other-side of the ocean, within the New World by the American playwrights with their unique treatment of the ‘extremities’ with the extreme language on the stage. Thus, this paper attempts to analyse and scrutinize the very in-yer- face sensibility within the American context through Amir Baraka’s Toilet (1964) and Holly Hughes’s Dress Suits to Hire (1987) by discovering how the concepts of sex, violence, homosexuality and blatant language have constructed the new inner voice as the extremity of provocative and confrontational theatre. Keywords: In-yer-face Theatre, sex, violence, homosexuality, masculinity.
This stylistic study attempts to examine the concept of inbetweenness experienced by two distinct... more This stylistic study attempts to examine the concept of inbetweenness experienced by two distinct ethnic identities, Chinese and Indian, as reflected by two ethnic female American authors with their specific treatment of language. Inbetweenness, caused mostly by migration, is the inevitable dilemma of being ‘the other’ among a dominant homogenous whole. When the deviance between traditional experience, attributed to the minority groups such as immigrants, and the modernity, attributed to the dominant society, hugely contrasts, the margins are usually ascribed the position of backwardness and inferiority. Inevitably, the differences cause a version of dichotomist discourse in which the traditional versus the modern. Such a dichotomist variation causes the minority groups to go through identity crisis heightened by rootlessness and inbetweenness. Within this study, tracing the specific cultural, gender-related and generational gaps between the ethnic identities, an Indian-American short story collection and a Chinese-American novel will be examined with specifically identifying how the dilemma of ‘inbetweenness’ is manifested by the author’s genuine treatment of language. Unaccustomed Earth (2008) reflects the problems of identity crisis and cultural clash caused by the sense of macro-level inbetweenness of Indian immigrants within the America of the 1970s. The Good Earth (1931), on the other hand, reveals the heroic story of a Chinese family’s dedication to rural China, and their sense of micro-level inbetweenness when the family is politically forced to live in the urban city. Both fictions reflect similarly parallel concerns regarding gender, ethnicity, cultural clash, identity crisis and generational gap. Evenly, the ‘earth’ that is referred as ‘good’ within Chinese context becomes ‘unaccustomed’ within the Indian context when the ethnic characters lose their sense of belonging and ethnic identities.
Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the leading British modernist novelists. Woolf, with her rad... more Virginia Woolf is regarded as one of the leading British modernist novelists. Woolf, with her radical innovation and experimental styles, can also be acknowledged as the precursor of postmodernism. This paper aims to discuss Woolf`s the most challenging and innovative novel The Waves as a novel bearing postmodernist novel features although it is categorized as a modern novel. Woolf employs the very postmodernist techniques such as intertextuality, metafictionality and pastische. She rejects not only the established literary traditions of the earlier periods but also the socio-cultural values and sets out to come up with something novel to provide insights into the psychology of the characters to examine their reactions against the absence of stability, order, continuity and wholeness. Woolf exposes the voices of six characters, which calls into question the concepts such as unchangeable and timeless truth, objective reality and meaning. The Waves does not offer characters who are whole and knowable; rather, they are characterized by fragmentation, discontinuity, and multiplicity which are preferred in postmo-dern literature to the ideology of unity and continuity. The characters pursue an existen-tial quest to be complete, whole, stable and solid but this quest results in failure and the characters have gained the postmodern awareness that self is not single, unique and unified but many, fluid and in constant process.
Despite the fact that the story retold in Wide Sargasso Sea on the surface seems to be a pathetic... more Despite the fact that the story retold in Wide Sargasso Sea on the surface seems to be a
pathetic love story of a Creole woman who goes crazy due to unrequited love in her
marriage to an English man, through a close postcolonial reading of the novel several
crucial cultural and political orientalist attitudes towards Creole people, Europe’s
alternative and potential “other,” are depicted. “Orientalism, in Said’s formulation, is
principally a way of defining and ‘locating’ Europe’s others”. Accordingly, within the
context of this paper, the other version of the story of “the othered” will be examined
from a post colonialist perception through the representations of the characters
especially, that of Mr. Rochester. His orientalist and “othering” attitude towards
Antoinette and the Creole way of life in the Caribbean and the related crucial identity
problems of Antoinette will be discussed within the framework of this postcolonial
reading on Wide Sargasso Sea.
Key Words: postcolonialism, orientalism, postmodern paroody, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane
Eyre
DIVERSIFYING FEMINISMS IN THE LITERARY WORLD, 2023
Within the framework of Feminist Psychoanalysis of Julia Kristeva, this study aims to trace the s... more Within the framework of Feminist Psychoanalysis of Julia Kristeva, this study aims to trace the subversive feminist pattern of the daughter-speaker within the selected poetry of Sylvia Plath. Puzzling the conventional patriarchal myths on such concepts as femininity and maternity, Plath’s poetry adroitly denounces the so-called values of universality and constructed reality of the patriarchal discourse; meanwhile, she also reveals her poetic pursuit for non-patriarchal and non-hierarchal paths instead of these covenants. Her poetry basically rejects any idea of self which is preestablished, stable and stagnant. Emphasizing the absence of female subjectivity and experience within patriarchal domains, her poetry signals the disturbed mother-daughter relationship as a crucial dimension of this denial. Her poems usually expose the tendency of her poetic persona to go back to the semiotic order, where the daughter is peacefully united and bonded with the maternal figure without the thread of the symbolic order, where the patriarchal codes rest. Consequently, through her poetry, Plath’s poetical persona usually reveals a poetical pattern of attitude that casts a strong resistance to the language, the Name of the Father, the symbolic order and the pre-set rules, which altogether seem to encapsulate her own existence. Then, Plath’s daughter-speaker makes use of the very same language, which initially had persecuted and devoured her, in order to persecute both the father, the symbolic order and eventually death, therein her persona turns out to be self-destructive. Thus, her speaker sometimes goes as extreme as figuratively killing the father, as seen in “Daddy”. All the same, it is not only the father figure that is counter-attacked, but also the language of the father, the symbolic order and the violence it casts are also confronted with the similar degree of ferocity. In this way, Plath’s poetic persona makes use of the persecuting apparatus in metaphorically murdering the demonic father and ‘the vampire’, the father-like husband and eventually the patriarchy and the language in which she is made create her art of dying. Furthermore, these Kristevan concepts of resisting and attacking the language of the father and the paternal discourse and also persecuting the persecutor through its own apparatus, are also intensified by the interrupted Electra complex and unaccomplished mourning processes of Plath’s poetic persona. Inevitably, as she resists and then attacks on the symbolic order through its own means and casts a return to the semiotic order and the womb in order to get united with the mother, Plath’s daughter-speaker turns out to be self-destructive in achieving this impossible mission. Relatedly, this study aims to trace and analyze this subversive Kristevan pattern of Plath’s poetical persona meticulous woven in her ‘Art of Dying’, her confessional and suicidal canvas of poetry. To this end, through their dominant theme of ‘resisting and then persecuting the persecutor’, Plath’s “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus” and “Medusa” will be psychoanalyzed within the context of Kristevan Feminist Psychoanalysis. Keywords: Confessional Poetry, Sylvia Plath, Feminist Psychoanalysis, Julia Kristeva.
The Art of Dying within the Swan Songs: A Comparative Analysis of Death and Suicide Within the Poetry of Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara, 2023
Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara… Two female poets of distinct geographies, cultures, societies an... more Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara… Two female poets of distinct geographies, cultures, societies and periods followed a life with distinct sufferings and scars, but they produced similar poetries with the same wish and outcry for death. And in the end, both poets said their last words in the face of life through suicide. Indeed, there is this passionate bridge between these two poets since Marmara was a keen admirer of Plath’s poetry and art. And today, standing on this very bridge, this book renders a detailed comparative reading and analysis on their poetry within the context of the psychoanalytical perspectives to death and self-destruction. Through the psychoanalysis of their poetical lines that are intermingled with pains and traumas centered around the obsession of death and self-destruction, this book traces and unearths the mutual poetical mechanisms of the unconscious and the human psyche that turn the poetry of both poets into ‘art of dying’ as in the wording of Plath and ‘swan songs’ as in the wording of Marmara. Psychoanalyzing their poetic personas in their ‘art of dying’, this book highlights how Plath and Marmara became both the victims and the victors of their ‘swans songs’ via various psychological scars and existential dilemmas.
This ecofeminist study analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale by specifically examining t... more This ecofeminist study analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale by specifically examining the interconnections between women and nature drawn through the past memories of a dystopic era. Essentially, ecofeminism is a radical literary theory based on ecology and a sub-brach of ecocriticism, which proclaims that the oppression of women and the subjugation of nature are all interrelated stratums conducted by a prevailing masculine mindset; thus, this radical ecological criticism necessitates the analyses of these interconnected oppressions. According to the ecofeminist understanding the patriarchy exerts and maintains its power and domination by making use of authoritative power structures that are based on dualisms like human/nature, men/women, nature/culture. Thus, ecofeminists attempt to destroy all the established dualities and they disseminate ecologically informed societies where equality and liberation is maintained for all genders. By adopting such an ecofeminist stance, this study aims to explore the memories of Offred and the community of Gilead in order to unearth the connections between gender, nature, femininity, masculinity, sexuality, religion and science. Moreover, the role of the memory in constructing these polarized connections is to be questioned. Offred’s memory and re-memory of the dystopic regime of Gilead offer a catastrophic social order that reflects the fallacy of the modern man regarding his oppressive attitude towards nature and women.
Keywords: ecofeminism, women, nature, ecology, gender, memory, rememory, non-human world, dystopia.
The current conventional film industry produced in an atmosphere where the subconscious of the do... more The current conventional film industry produced in an atmosphere where the subconscious of the dominant patriarchal ideology rules over, manifests a fantasy world of images and representations in which both the creator and receiver of the product is a male heterosexual mind-set. Inevitably, the patriarchal cultural and social codes of power impact, shape and construct the social experience of gazing and looking, which causes the gaze to get masculinised, excluding the feminine and queer experience. The female body on the visual media is, thus, rendered into the status of the erotic object of desire to satisfy and please the male gaze owner, or the power holder within the movie and also among the spectators. From the framework of the dichotomy of the masculine and the feminine, while men on the screen are reflected as the perfect surveyors, the power owners, the active gazers and the creators of the meaning; the women, on the other hand are usually the erotic objects of desires who are passive and silenced characters that do not create the meaning but can only bear it through her body. Apart from the exceptional types, through the images and representations as the hyper-realities, most conventional film industry governed by the dominant patriarchal power structures, subconsciously directs, constructs and applies the predominant male gaze in accordance with the prevalent cultural codes of the society. Accordingly, in this study, dwelling from the theories of John Berger, Laura Mulvey and Michel Foucault, two cinematic forms, an Alfred Hitchcock film, The Rear Window (1954) and a Peter Cattaneo film, The Full Monty (1997) will be examined by specifically focussing on how the mind-set governing the ways of seeing and pleasure in looking at the bodies are constructed.
PhD (Doctoral Thesis), 2020
This thesis study aims to analyze the poetry of two female poets who committed suicide, Sylvia Pl... more This thesis study aims to analyze the poetry of two female poets who committed suicide, Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara, within the context of the psychoanalytical perspectives to death and self-destruction. By rendering a psychoanalytical analysis of their poetical lines that are intermingled with pains and traumas centered around the obsession of death and self-destruction, this study attempts to trace and unearth the mutual poetical mechanisms of the unconscious and the human psyche that turn the poetry of both poets into ‘art of dying’ as in the wording of Plath and ‘swan songs’ as in the wording of Marmara. Emphasizing the undeniable attachment between Plath and Marmara, this study also investigates how the poetry of the American poet, Plath, as a predecessor has influenced the poetry of the Turkish poet, Marmara, as a successor and how their poetical approaches to death and suicide display resemblance, parallels and contrasts. By rendering a comparative analysis within the context of suicide, this thesis also aims to reflect that although their social and cultural contexts may vary, both female poets manifest that poetry has been a distinct sphere of both isolation and confrontation with the various psychic ‘demons’ inherent in their self-alienated poetical personas. Through psychoanalyzing their poetic personas in their ‘art of dying’, this study attempts to highlight how Plath and Marmara became both the victims and the victors of their poetry via various psychological scars and existential dilemmas.
Keywords: death, suicide, psychoanalysis, poetry, Sylvia Plath, Nilgün Marmara.
MA Thesis, 2015
This thesis analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing ... more This thesis analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing from ecofeminist viewpoints by specifically examining the interconnections between women and nature in both future-societies. Essentially, ecofeminism is a radical literary theory and a political movement based on ecology and a sub-branch of ecocriticism, which proclaims that the subjugation of the females and the exploitation of nature are all interrelated stratums conducted by a prevailing masculine mindset; thus, this radical ecological criticism necessitates the analyses of these interconnected oppressions. According to the ecofeminist understanding, the patriarchy exerts and maintains its power and domination by making use of authoritative power structures that are based on dualisms like human/nature, men/women, nature/culture. Thus, ecofeminists attempt to destroy all the established dualities and they disseminate ecologically informed societies where equality and liberation are maintained for all genders. This study explores the specific ecofeminist themes prevalent within Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing. These novels trace the connections between gender, nature, femininity, masculinity, sexuality, religion and science. While the dystopic fiction of Atwood offers a catastrophic social order that reflects the fallacy of the modern man regarding his oppressive attitude towards nature and women, Starhawk’s ecotopia, on the other hand, proposes an ecotopia where all species, genders, the human and nonhuman communities live in equality, peace and harmony. Both fictions, thus, focus on the issues of women and nature and signal an ecofeminist message by reflecting that if the society does not change its patriarchal, hierarchal and mostly androcentric approach towards women and nature, the environmental crisis and gender-based discrimination will be sustained forever.