Gökçenaz Gayret | Trabzon University (original) (raw)

Papers by Gökçenaz Gayret

New Era Journal , 2024

This study aims to show that Claire North uses retelling Greek myths as a strategy to dismantle t... more This study aims to show that Claire North uses retelling Greek myths as a strategy to dismantle the prepotency of phallocentrism designating steady female identities and resituates the feminine passivated and ossified in canonical male texts in her novel, Ithaca, through a lens of Irigarian standpoint and feminist revisionist mythmaking. In the myth of Penelope forming the basis of the novel, the feminine is embedded and appreciated in cultural memory as faithful, passive, subservient, and complementary of man. North evacuates the feminine from the monolithic and homogenizing representations in Greek myths and reverberates that the feminine solidified and essentialized by the omnipotence of phallocentrism is artifact through engendering alternative realities and pluralistic interpretations about the struggles of Penelope. Re-fictionalizing the peripheral object of phallocentric logic in myths as speaking subject, she destabilizes the phallocentric notions which are premised upon solid entities and accord no specificity to the feminine and reconstruct the feminine as dynamic subject which is not jammed in singular and static concepts. North also rejuvenates the feminine disidentified and obfuscated by phallocentric decrees by endowing female figure of Greek myths, Penelope, with cunning and strategic features and mutate the quiescent, virtuous, and man-dependent woman into self-reflexive subject afar from symbolic systems subtended by male imaginary. Thus, she builds a new feminine culture defying passivity of the feminine through providing alternative experiences of Penelope which are not imbedded by male imaginary in Greek myths and renouncing the phallocentric representations of the feminine embedded in cultural memory.

Debbie tucker green, one of the most remarkable playwrights on the twenty-first century British s... more Debbie tucker green, one of the most remarkable playwrights on the twenty-first century British stage, deals with the role of the silence of bystanders in perpetuating domestic violence and abuse and aggravating the suffering of victims in her debut plays, dirty butterfly and born bad, based on the triangle of victim, perpetrator, and bystander. In both plays, tucker green puts more focus on the unresponsive attitudes of bystanders towards the sufferings of victims succumbing to the repeated intimate partner violence and parental sexual abuse than the persecution of perpetrators. Bystanders do nothing to intervene in domestic violence and ease the Öz

The current study aims to show that D.H. Lawrence establishes new moral values based upon blood c... more The current study aims to show that D.H. Lawrence establishes new moral values based upon blood consciousness through privileging instincts and sensations over the suffocating conventions abnegating the absolutes and dogmas; and appraising the perfect harmony of body, soul, and mind in his novellas, The Ladybird and The Fox, with references to Why the Novel Matters. In his essay, Why the Novel Matters, Lawrence questions all absolutes, conventions, morals, and expectations numbing and
incinerating human’s energies, instincts, and sensations and proposes that the antagonism between mind
and body consumes and destroys human from the inside so there must be a perfect unity between mind, soul, and body to be alive and to be a whole human alive. Similarly, moral values and conventions subjugate the instincts of the characters in The Ladybird and The Fox and lead them into a state of spiritual numbness and a life devoid of vitality and meaning as they paralyze the harmony between their mind, soul, and body. Rather than letting his characters be entrenched in conforming to societal
conventions and morals, Lawrence plunges into the depths of their consciousness, releases their innermost feelings submerged by conventions, and transforms them into an instinctually sterile state
into a whole human alive. Thus, he denies the ascendancy of all absolutes and conventions over body and restores the unity between the broken halves of whole- body and mind-, thereby establishing new moral values attaching priority to blood consciousness over mental consciousness.

The current study aims to present how Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman concentrate upo... more The current study aims to present how Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman concentrate upon the devastating effects of the subjugation on female psyche and accentuate the discordance between inner self and social self by sneaking into the minds of the anonymous female narrators whose freedom and identity are subjugated by the patriarchy in their short stories, The Mark on the Wall and The Yellow Wallpaper, respectively. The patriarchal order in both stories asserts control over the mind of female characters and reduces them to submissiveness and docility associated with the traditional cult of true womanhood. In this sense, dwelled on gender apartheid and fragmentation of female psyche, Woolf and Gilman call the societal assertiveness into question, deny women's invisibility in society, and find a true female self beyond the identities incarcerated in oppressive patriarchal imperatives. The study shows that Woolf and Gilman use the narrators' flow of thoughts to reflect the narrator's suffering from inner-outer split in androcentric society; to enlighten the reader about how unjust gender relations and the lack of autonomy undermine female psyche; to resist against dogmatic set of rules and values embodied by patriarchy. They use flow of thoughts as a means of liberating female characters from the yokes of patriarchal mindset and articulate their short stories as a feminist outcry against the patriarchy which attempts to subdue women and ensnare the female psyche.

This study aims to show that Samuel Richardson, one of the most prominent figures of epistolary n... more This study aims to show that Samuel Richardson, one of the most prominent figures of epistolary novel, reflects the social context of the eighteenth-century England ranging from class conflict to moral corruption through focusing on the overt social tension between a virtuous servant girl and a noble man in his novel, Pamela. Richardson provides a social picture of the tension between classes and criticizes moral corruption of upper class through being concerned with struggle of Pamela with prolonged sexual advances of Mr. B. Throughout the novel, Pamela stands up to not only immoral tendencies of Mr. B to preserve her chastity but also disdainful and unjust attitudes of upper class to her to be welcomed as an individual in the society. In a fierce battle for protecting her innocence and gaining her autonomy, she does not give into the demands of Mr. B. and formulates a new man of morals as a loving husband and generous landowner. She is appreciated by patronizing upper class thanks to her moral goodness and finally moves up the social ladder. Thus, Richardson indicates the possibility of social mobility and the triumph of virtue over pride and immorality of upper class as well as social reconciliation between classes in his debut novel.

The current paper aims to delineate the patriarchal and racist repercussions on the lives of fami... more The current paper aims to delineate the patriarchal and racist repercussions on the lives of family members in Maggie Gee's The White Family. Maggie Gee portrays the ideological and emotional chaos in the society such as patriarchy, prejudices, unhealthy interracial relationships, and black homophobia through the characters, Alfred White, his bookish wife May, their daughter Shirley, and their sons Darren and Dirk in her novel, The White Family, which is considered a condition-of-England novel and provides a panoramic view of sociocultural problems of the twenty first century England. Using multiple perspectives, Gee reveals the inner reality of each member of the White family, their relationships with each other and their past, and their prejudices, fears, and frustration stemming from the racist and patriarchal attitudes of their father and meekness of their mother in their childhood. Patriarchy and racism intersect in the ideology of Alfred so profoundly and his racist and patriarchal attitudes besiege the White family so intensely that a culture of discrimination and violence undermines peace and love in their home. Gee reflects patriarchal and racist ideologies as the instigator of oppressive, bloody, violent, and humiliating acts prevailing in the society and blames patriarchy for broken family ties in The White Family.

Gothic Implications on the Enlightenment, Puritanism, and Transcendentalism in Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland, 2020

The impetus behind the current study lies in exploring how Charles Brockden Brown expostulates re... more The impetus behind the current study lies in exploring how Charles Brockden Brown expostulates reason and rationalism by posing questions to Enlightenment ideas, criticizes Puritanism through addressing the detrimental influence of religious fanaticism on society and humanity, and violates Transcendentalist concept of the inherently good and dignified human with gothic representations in Wieland. Brown underlines the dark applications of reason, obsessive religious melancholy, and destructive evil nature of humanity by locating the sources of terror and retaining a gothic mood of emotional and psychological extremity in the novel. The study shows that Brown violates the idea that reason ensures the progress of humanity; offers his critiques of the impending influence of religious mania on humanity by addressing Puritanism; and questions the transcendentalist view by presenting how the perverse nature of evil buried within each individual drags humans into diabolical actions through gothic elements which do not deal with rationality.

Her Maşuk Candan Usandırır Aşığı, 2019

"Walking Wombs": Loss of Individuality and Self-Alienation in The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, 2019

Margaret Atwood, in The Handmaid's Tale, delineates a futuristic dystopian society in which a mal... more Margaret Atwood, in The Handmaid's Tale, delineates a futuristic dystopian society in which a male chauvinist society debars women from self-identity, subjectivity, self-esteem, and power. Women are incarcerated in oppressive societal imperatives of a totalitarian theocratic state which restricts women's individuality; simplifies and manipulates language; erases their inborn identity; discharges women from their jobs; confiscates their properties and bank accounts; and imposes strict bans on reading, writing, speaking, and thinking. Creating bleak dystopian tale of oppression vis-à-vis female freedom, Atwood manifests how women are politically, economically, biologically, sexually, and psychologically exploited, controlled, restricted, manipulated, and subjugated by socially circumscribed roles. The present study is primarily concerned with fragmentation of female identity, objectification and subordination of women within oppressive patriarchal regime. In this regard, it aims to speculate how patriarchal social order strips women of Gökçenaz GAYRET / KAÜSBED, 2019; Ek Sayı 2; 103-121 104 their rights and asserts control over female body by reducing to walking wombs through religious fundamentalism, constant surveillance, limited language, inflicting violence and fear, repressing freedom, and brainwashing. The study also shows how the biological and psychological oppression on women and otherness lead them to the loss of an internal identity; how women internalize social conditioned gender norms; and how subjugating women is maintained by disciplining and alienating female bodies, idealizing female self-sacrifice, and institutionalizing feminity within patriarchal society.

Lexical Patterns of Free Indirect Discourse in D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love, 2016

This study explores D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love in terms of lexical patterns of free indirect d... more This study explores D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love in terms of lexical patterns of free indirect discourse. In an attempt to investigate how lexical patterns attribute to free indirect discourse in the narrative, related features are categorized into six subcategories consisting of clause-initial adjuncts, interjections, sentence modifiers, epistemic lexemes, intensifiers, and foreign lexemes. The study argues that the author's use of free indirect discourse helps to reverberate the characters' process of self-awareness, stirred yet submerged desires, multitudinous thoughts, inarticulate and repressed instinct, self-assessment, and sudden burst of feelings. Moreover, the study shows how the author exploits free indirect discourse to represent spontaneous consciousness, reveals the character's inner self; contributes to polyvocality; makes the character's subjective voice heard; invokes irony and creates a sense of detachment as well as arousing empathy in Women in Love.

Conference Presentations by Gökçenaz Gayret

Deictic Features of Free Indirect Discourse in D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, 2017

Temporal and spatial deictic words pertaining to the use of free indirect discourse are indicativ... more Temporal and spatial deictic words pertaining to the use of free indirect discourse are indicative in D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love. This paper investigates the combination of these deictic expressions in free indirect style that contribute to the complication of perspective, narrative polyvocality and temporal variety. Such combinations may pave for anachronies and the reader perceives the events twice: anchoring the voice to both moment of utterance and the narrative past. In addition, the study suggests that the co-occurrence of the narrative past with the present time of deictics invokes two seemingly adverse effects. The readers are involved in the immediate consciousness with the help of deictics. They keep a certain distance with the narrative realm as well as retain utmost empathy with the characters. This brings about a situational and dramatic irony. In a nutshell, this study argues that deictic features of free indirect discourse invoke anachrony, polyvocality, irony, and empathy in the narrative text, engaging the reader in the mental processes of the narrator and the character.

Triply Burdened Women in Alice Walker's The Color Purple, 2017

The present study focuses on the multifaceted violence suffered by Afro- American women in Alice ... more The present study focuses on the multifaceted violence suffered by Afro-
American women in Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, through reflecting the effects of gender, race and class discrimination on the depressed lives of black women. In The Color Purple, Alice Walker, a descendant of Harlem Renaissance, deals with mistreatments of black women, asserts selfhood, resists oppression, and inspires black female characters to gain their selfrealization. The black female characters face triple bind in the novel: They are victims of race discrimination as blacks, they are victimized by patriarchal system as women, and they are victimized by both gender identity and racial grounds as black women. Celie, the protagonist, who is repeatedly raped and impregnated by her stepfather, forced to marry a man with three children, maltreated by men, taught to feel ugly, constantly subjected to verbal and physical violence, enslaved to the hell of exploitation, and molded from pain symbolizes the oppressed black women in a patriarchal and racist system. The abuse at the hand of racist and patriarchal system provides her a decline in self-esteem and makes her decide that she can best ensure her survival by making herself silent and invisible. In this regard, the novel devotes itself to stop this plethora of violence suffered by the triply burdened Afro-American women. This study aims to explore how Alice Walker establishes black female liberation by shaking off the slavery in patriarchal minds and provides an opportunity for black women to achieve self-recognition, self-value, and selfesteem in the light of Celie’s gradual progress from a trapped life to a self-ruled life in The Color Purple.

Otherness And Restoration Of Self İn Toni Morrison's Beloved, 2017

The present study aims to explore the devastating effects of slavery on the individual’s sense of... more The present study aims to explore the devastating effects of slavery on the individual’s sense of self and the formation of shattered identities as a result of greatest human endurance to severe indignities, degradation,
dehumanization, rape, mutilation, suffering under law, oppression, and
prejudice in Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Beloved. The novel narrates the traumatic impact of slavery on the black psyche through the memories and experiences of an African- American woman, Sethe, who tries to reclaim her life and identity after suffering the cruelty of slavery. In Beloved, the white community labels black population as lesser human beings, namely the others. This label nullifies the characters’ self-awareness; therefore, they seem to be alienated from themselves and filled with self-loathing. Depicting the dehumanization of slavery and the alienation of the black self, Morrison manages to articulate the unspeakable and eliminate the black people’s internalized sense of inferiority. This study demonstrates how Beloved penetrates into the wounded psyche and fragmented self of the characters shouldering the extreme burden of slavery and Morrison makes efforts to degrade the notion of inferiority implanted their minds, thereby helps them to restore their sense of human dignity.
Keywords: slavery, dehumanization, sense of self, self-awareness, African-American society

Book Reviews by Gökçenaz Gayret

Dorrit Cohn, Şeffaf Zihinler Kurmaca Eserlerde Bilincin Sunumu, 2020

Dorrit Cohn tarafından Transparent Minds Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction ... more Dorrit Cohn tarafından Transparent Minds Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction özgün adıyla 1978 yılında kaleme alınan eser 2008 yılında dilimize kazandırılmıştır.

Books by Gökçenaz Gayret