Department of English Language and Literature
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Browsing Department of English Language and Literature by Author "BATUM MENTEŞE, Oya"
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Item COLONIAL DISCOURSE AND RESISTANCE in JEAN RHYS’S WIDE SARGASSO SEA, BUCHI EMECHETA’S SECOND CLASS CITIZEN and FADIA FAQIR’S MY NAME IS SALMA(2022-01-25) LENGERLİ AYDEMİR, Siray; BATUM MENTEŞE, OyaWith an aim to reach a wider understanding of the still functioning colonial discourse in recent decades, this dissertation argues self-definition and resistance of the female protagonists in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen and Fadia Faqir’s My Name is Salma. The protagonists’ ways to define their self and resist the colonial discourse and its patriarchal hold on their life during colonial, post-colonial and multi-cultural times are the focus of the textual analyses. The essence of colonial discourse, enfolding the colonizer as the central and excluding the other as the outsider, has been a burden for the protagonists, which seems impossible to struggle with. Yet, it is their own tactics, which pave the path for them to resist, and sometimes to bow to the colonial discourse in order to find a definition for themselves within this insurmountable language. These tactics differ in time; place and identity, in that, the settings in the novels are different starting from the colonial and approaching to the multi-cultural. Therefore, the theories and definitions differ accordingly. A variety of theoretical approaches and detections are applied throughout the analysis focusing mainly on imperialism, binary oppositions, counter-discourse, the Third Space, linguistic imperialism and mimicry. Bill Ashcroft, Michael Foucault, Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Hamid Dabashi, Robert Phillipson, Leila Ahmed, Alastair Pennycook, Robert Young, Richard Terdiman, Ania Loomba, Elleke Boehmer, Oyeronke Owewumi and Amin Malak are the leading theorists and critics, whose views and theories enlightened the study to arrive at a reasonable conclusion, which emphasizes the idea that colonial discourse still keeps its essence with a patriarchal eye.Item REPRESENTING HISTORY IN CONTEMPORARY BRITISH FICTION: A NEW HISTORICIST APPROACH TO KAZUO ISHIGURO’S WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS, GRAHAM SWIFT’S WATERLAND AND JULIAN BARNES’S FLAUBERT’S PARROT(2015-10-17) SERDAROĞLU, Duygu; BATUM MENTEŞE, OyaNew Historicism, flourishing in the 1980s as a “new” contemporary literary approach, proposes new viewpoints to the understanding of history and challenges the strict line between history writing and fiction writing, thus between historian and fiction writer with the claim that both genres are constructed textual representations. In other words, New Historicism argues that because of the subjective viewpoint of the historian and the political, cultural and social conditions in which the historian lives and which affect his narration, it becomes almost impossible for him to write objective “absolute” truths about the past. New Historicism deals with the representations of history rather than the history itself since it believes that there is not one history but multiple histories. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the representations of history in three contemporary historical novels; Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans, Graham Swift’s Waterland and Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot from the New Historicist viewpoint by focusing on the concepts of time, memory, documentation and narrative techniques. Being examples of the detective genre and parody of the detective fiction as well as biography writing, these three novels meet on the same ground with their problematic representations of history with their protagonists who are detectives, history teachers and biographers. Thus, this thesis aims at studying these novels from that perspective to reveal how history is narrated in subjective multiple ways and how personal histories and public histories are intermingled.Item THE USE OF BAKHTINIAN CARNIVALESQUE IN ANGELA CARTER’S NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS AND WISE CHILDREN(2012-07-25) İNAL, Merih; BATUM MENTEŞE, OyaThe purpose of this thesis is to analyze Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus and Wise Children in terms of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalesque. This study demonstrates that the writer mentioned above uses the carnivalesque as means of subverting traditional patriarchal value structures. In the introduction chapter, information concerning the literary biography and works of Angela Carter is given. The techniques Carter used such as fantasy, parody and magic realism are analyzed after a brief explanation of post-modernism. Furthermore, in this chapter Mikhail Bakhtin’s literary biography and its effects on the developments of his theories will be investigated. The theories of heteroglossia, dialogism and chronotope will be explained and this will be followed by a detailed discussion on the concept of the carnivalesque and its two key notions grotesque realism and carnival laughter. In the body chapters, the novels mentioned above will be analyzed in terms of grotesque realism and carnival laughter aiming to show that Carter subverts and deconstructs patriarchal culture in order to construct a new order in which women will become liberated. In the conclusion chapter, it is argued that the new world order which Carter constructed in the novels will last only temporarily—just like carnivals—after which patriarchy will be the dominant ideology again .Item THE USE OF HISTORY AND FANTASY IN JEANETTE WINTERSON’S THE PASSION AND SEXING THE CHERRY(2011-04-26) USMAN, Gökçen; BATUM MENTEŞE, OyaThe purpose of this thesis is to analyze Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion and Sexing the Cherry in terms of the uses of history and fantasy which will lead to a discussion of historiographic metafiction and magic realism within the framework of postmodern literature. This study demonstrates that the writer uses these postmodern ways of writing as means of subverting traditional patriarchal value structures. In the introduction chapter, information concerning socio-cultural and historical background of postmodernism, postmodern literature which includes postmodern literary techniques of historiographic metafiction and magic realism, the concepts of sex, gender, and gender roles and the literary biography and works of Jeanette Winterson has been given in great detail. Throughout the analysis in the body chapter, the aim was to prove with evidences from the texts that through the characters in both novels, Winterson blurs the line between femininity and masculinity; thus, subverts traditional gender roles which are assigned by patriarchy. Furthermore, through the settings and characters which are both historical and fantastic and by using unusual elements, Winterson transgresses the boundaries of fact and fantasy and rejects traditions, laws, institutions, norms, beliefs, and traditional rules which are established by the patriarchal society. As a result, by providing alternative realities and histories, she gives voice to women who are the silenced group in the society; thus stands against patriarchal domination and oppression over women.