Theoretical Observation PAMUK’S SOLUTIONS

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4. Theoretical Observation

This chapter illustrates Pamuk’s solutions to the problem on the predicament of the oscillation of the East and the West that are offered by his two selected works through the enchantment and appropriation of Frankish painting and Western science and technology. Through his oeuvre, Pamuk wants to mediate and break down the binary opposition of the East and the West, of Self and Other, of master and slave, and of miniature and portrait that is always problematized. Said, in Orientalism, mentions that the binary opposition that separates the East and the West is a political doctrine for dominating, having authority, and maintaining power over the Orient. 376 The Kemalists and the ruling elites take advantage of this binary to self-orientalised it country and promote the stereotype that Turkey is weaker and inferior than the West and launch their Westernization agenda. As Turkey’s “deepest and most recurring images of the Other”, 377 the West has been imagined and believed as the only solution that can save and develop the country from the destruction. When the Empire collapsed, the elites assume that Turkey “requiring Western attention, reconstruction, even redemption for it has been isolated from European progress in the sciences, arts, and commerce. 378 In this chapter, I stress that hybridity is Pamuk’s alternative solution to the predicament of Turkey’s oscillation in its modern identity formation. He uses hybridity through presenting hüzün, the very essence of melancholy, 379 as a way 376 Said, Orientalism, 3. 377 Said, Orientalism, 1-2. 378 Said, Orientalism, 6. 379 Pamuk, İstanbul, 92. 154 to overcome the deep spiritual loss of the Islamic Ottoman tradition and of the erasure of the Islamic miniature painting. Hüzün also leads Turkish people to the answer of their sadness and relieve the ache that can save their souls. Pamuk even suggests to combine the two cultures in revealing the feeling of melancholy rather than living in one of those cultures or only slavishly imitating Western culture therefore a new hybrid culture can be invented. 380 Through his position that is not taking sides, his critique to the representatives of the secularists and the conservatives, as well as his hybrid background as a writer, Pamuk wants to emphasize that embracing two spirits culture is not a big sin. In addition, he also criticises the Westernists who want to simplify the complex cosmopolitanism in Turkey by conducting modernization project that force the Turks to slavishly imitating the West and leave the old Ottoman tradition. This modernization project, moreover, has left a deep scar and confusion in Turkish society who becomes the victim of this movement. Bruno Latour emphasizes the argument above by saying that modernization “destroys the near-totality of cultures and native by force and bloodshed” 381 . However, the Ottoman illuminators cannot avoid this because sooner or later the old Ottoman tradition will be lost for it is simply that Western culture is more attractive than the Islamic Ottoman culture. In this chapter, Bhabha’s discourse on Postcolonialism illuminates Pamuk’s solutions towards the East-West dichotomy in his two selected novels. 380 Pamuk, Other Colours, 369-370. 381 Bruno Latour, We have never been Modern translated by Catherine Porter Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993 130. 155 Pamuk, as I have mentioned in chapter III, offers the third space and chooses to mix the East and the West traditions as his alternative solution of the predicament of the oscillation in My Name is Red and The White Castle. In this third space, the East negotiates the binary opposition of the cultural differences. As Bhabha says that the third space is a place where the exchange of identity and mimicry that results hybrid takes place. Pamuk proposes the liminal space to negotiate the everlasting predicament of the binary between the East and the West. He offers the third space and chooses to combine the East and the West as an alternative solution of this predicament. For Pamuk, this liminal space is an individual’s private place in his identity formation processes that should not be disturbed by certain groups or sides. Pamuk not only proposes the liminal space to his readers as a place where the East and the West meet, moreover, he also symbolizes his works as the Bosphorous Bridge, which connects the Eastern and Western side of İstanbul. Instead of giving clear solutions to the dichotomy and the oscillation of the East and the West in his selected works, Pamuk displays a tragedy that is experienced by both of the representatives. Pamuk clearly depicted the characters that overly bound to the East and to the West experience tragedy and death in their life. He wants to show how dangerous it will be to be totally East or West for it will only left Turkey with a single spirit, which is worse than having the sickness. 382 He also criticizes the Westernists and anti-Westernists that demand Turkey to be totally East or totally West. Essentially, the binary opposition between the 382 Pamuk, Other Colours, 369. 156 East and the West is created by the elites that self-orientalised their people by constructing a myth that West is superior and the East is inferior. The Turks self- orientalism that leads to the abrupt civilization project by the elite Westernists also left a deep wound to the loss of the grand Ottoman Empire. In addition, the binary opposition, self-orientalism, and the complex desire to imitate the Other in Said’s discourse on the Orientalism that is experienced by Pamuk’s characters in his selected works can be solved by living in and mixing the two different cultures to produce hybrid culture. In The White Castle, Pamuk presents Turkey’s split identity through Hoja and his Italian slave whose identities are constantly blurred and their characters also blend as one in the end of the novel. Moreover, Pamuk also presents the Sultan’s commissioned Orient book, which contains Western style of painting, as a room to mediate the predicament of the Orient and Occident different way of seeing. Additionally, Bhabha also emphasize that the East-West tension can be resolved by providing the liminal space as a way to mediate, combine, and mix the two contrast “colours”. By imitating the Other, the East tries to rewrite the new identity above the earlier identity and resulted hybrid culture. 383 However, Bhabha also warns that sometimes hybridity and hybrid culture can drive people to a new crisis and ambivalence because people live in two different traditions. Moreover, Bhabha’s idea on hybridity has important consequences for minority or Eastern cultures have a possibility to be ignored, assimilated, and erased. 384 While Pamuk, he has different argument from Bhabha, by stressing that hybridity, which 383 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 120. 384 Huddart, Homi K. Bhabha, 99. 157 is resulted in the liminal space is not that dangerous however it enriches the Turks and Pamuk’s characters identity in his oeuvre. Pamuk also mentions that what is more dangerous is that becoming totally East or totally West because it can destroy and kill each other. Therefore, Pamuk proposes to embrace Western modernity without leaving the Islamic Ottoman roots. Here, Pamuk and Bhabha have the same agenda in challenging the ideas of being modern, which is always interrelated to the adoption of Western cultures and traditions that also brings melancholy. Pamuk challenges Turkey’s modernization that is inspired by French Revolution and raises the spirit of nationalism and purification, which agenda is the erasure of multiculturalism. 385 This abrupt Westernization is a self-colonialism of identity by Turkey’s Western elites that desires the uniformity and rejects multiculturalism, multi-ethnicity, multi-lingualism, and cosmopolitanism 386 that leads to the authoritarian and dictatorship. Pamuk’s selected works are reflection of his own hybrid life. His hybrid background, as a man who comes from a secular family but highly appreciates the Ottoman tradition, also influences him to reconcile the two different cultures and traditions that are beautifully captured in his selected stories. 385 Mohamad, Catatan Pinggir 6, 148-150. 386 Göknar, “My Name is Read”, 55. 158

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION