Microsoft Word 1 Arif thesis cover final doc

CHAPTER 3 – SOME TOPOI IN THE KURTULUŞ EDEBİYATI 
88 
The novel shares a number of characteristics with others of the period. In narrative 
form it stresses its authenticity by resorting to the diary or journal form, as do Halide 
Edip’s 
Ateşten Gömlek
, and Yakup Kadri’s 
Yaban
. Unlike 
Yaban
, however, there is 
not much self-reflection and the diary entries simply carry the narrative forward in a 
fairly straightforward manner without being constructed in such a way by the author 
as to let the reader suspect the perceptions of the narrator. The character of the 
narrator has some complexity: Feride herself is not an angel and can tease or slight 
others who attempt to slight her. When she is invited to the salon of a provincial petit 
bourgeois family, she does not hesitate to put them in their proper place because of 
their vanity. The salient feature of 
Çalıkuşu
which it shares with 
Vurun Kahpeye
and 
Yaban
is its juxtaposition of a person from Istanbul educated in western ways, a point 
emphasised by the heroine’s education in a convent school, with the inhabitants of 
Anatolia; and, as in 
Vurun Kahpeye
, the person in question is both a teacher and a 
woman.
The mainspring of the novel lies in the emotions of the heroine and in the 
development of the action; there are no enemies, internal or external, in contrast to 
Ateşten Gömlek
, 
Vurun Kahpeye
or 
Yaban
. There are no anguished doubts, as in 
Yaban
, about the possibility of winning over the inhabitants of Anatolia; the 
character and determination of the heroine is presented as sufficient to crown her 
mission with success. 
At a first reading, at least, there seems to be no reference to the war which was still 
continuing when the novel was serialised. Attempts to connect it with that war have 
nonetheless been made; the most elaborate attempt is in a paper by Sibel Erol, 

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