40 go far enough. Moreover, this westernization also brought isolation, which made
them isolated from the Western world they emulated.
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Orientalism is a political doctrine, which is used to control and dominate the Orient by promoting the stereotype that the Orient is weaker than the
Occident. Even though, in reality, the Ottoman was strong and able to dominate both East and West but there is still tension and longing within them to embrace
and imitate the West. As Said stresses the West has been imagine as the “messiah” that can save and release Turkey from the backwardness and
retardation. Therefore, Said’s discourse on Orientalism will be used to reveal the oscillation of the East and the West as well as the complex desire to imitate
Others.
3. Theoretical Framework
Since both novels depict the encounter between the Turks and the Italian, in the case of their tradition, culture and art, I will employ Edward Said’s
discourse on Orientalism and Homi K. Bhabha’s discourse on Postcolonialism to answer the research questions. These theories are utilized in problematizing the
influence of the Italian Renaissance style and science as well as technology toward Turkish miniature painting and traditional Turkish custom. Edward Said’s
Orientalism will be used to examine the Turks’ perception on seeing themselves upon the Italian. In addition, it is also borrowed to complicate the binary
opposition between the East and the West and self and other that is always
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Pamuk, Other Colours, 370.
41 problematized in Pamuk’s oeuvre. Whereas, Bhabha’s Postcolonial theory is
employed to illuminate the solution that Pamuk’s stories offer to the predicament of the oscillation between being enchanted to the West and being drawn to its own
tradition that Turkish society is undergoing using his hybridity, mimicry, and in- betweenness. On the other hand, this theory helps to unfold the question on the
personal search for the true identity as the core of Pamuk’s novels. Also, the last is finding the relevance of these two novels, My Name is Red and The White
Castle, with the condition in Indonesia that also faces the fundamentalists—that might disrupt the unity as well as simplify and purify the multiculturalism—and
the lure of modernity that can reverse Indonesian people from its roots.
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CHAPTER III THE IRONY OF THE EAST-WEST OSCILLATION
Dealing with the first questions of the research, this chapter will outline the complexity of the oscillation of the East and the West in Pamuk’s My Name is
red and The White Castle. I divided this chapter into five sub-chapters. In the first sub-chapter, I will discuss cosmopolitanism signified in the novels to see
hybridity,
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which becomes the result of cosmopolitanism in İstanbul. As the result of the encounter between the East and the West, there is an
attraction of Western culture and art as well as science and technology, which lead to the adoption of Western tradition. For that reason, in the second sub-chapter, I
will review the enchantment and appropriation of the Italian Renaissance art by Turkish miniature painters and European technology and science by Hoja that are
depicted in the novels studied. Though Western aspects have enchanted the miniature painters and Hoja,
there are groups that still keep and preserve the Ottoman art and tradition. In view of that, in the third sub-chapter, I will present the maintenance and preservation of
the Eastern aspects in both novels. Furthermore, the Turks’ personal search for identity as individual will be
discussed in the fourth sub-chapter because the predicament of the oscillation between being enchanted to the West and being drawn to its own tradition leads to
the identity crisis that is experienced by Pamuk’s characters and also the Ottoman Sultans.
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The analysis on hybridity will be explained further in the next chapter.
