Microsoft Word 1 Arif thesis cover final doc

CHAPTER 3 – SOME TOPOI IN THE KURTULUŞ EDEBİYATI 
84 
Kahpeye
Halide Edip chooses the name Aliye, meaning exalted, for hers. The story is 
in its essence about Feride being finally reunited with her long lost love after a series 
of adventures. In this respect the novel follows an age old pattern going back to 
antiquity and instanced both in the Dîvan Edebiyatı by 
Leylâ ve Mecnun 
and in the 
Halk Edebiyatı 
Kerem ile Aslı
6
.
 
The pattern is however given an entirely 
contemporary appearance with a heroine with a Western style education and her 
adventures in the highly topical Anatolia. The illusion of authenticity is enhanced by 
presenting the narrative up to the last part through supposed excerpts from the 
heroine’s diary.
Feride who lost her ailing mother when she was six while returning to Istanbul from 
a posting of her father’s in the Middle East, was left in the hands of obedient and 
caring servants and her maternal grandmother and aunts. The most prominent role 
among the servants is played by Hüseyin, her father’s lame ex-orderly who is 
Feride’s carer. After her grandmother died when Feride was nine her father sent her 
as a boarder to a French convent school. Three years later her father died too and she 
spent her holidays with her aunts. Although she subsequently felt the loss of the love 
and care of a mother, she spent a carefree childhood, in contrast to Aliye in 
Vurun 
Kahpeye,
among her aunts who were kind to her and, no matter how naughty she 
was, refrained from punishing her to avoid committing the sin of punishing an 
orphan child. In this early period she was also given the nickname 
Çalıkuşu
(Wren), 
symbolising the free spirit of her own heart and mind and her physical agility. In the 
first part of the novel we have a very good depiction of the life of a well to do and 
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Kudret II, 271 

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