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written by A. Bagus Laksana entitled Mereka-reka Estetika Keribetan Hidup Harian explores the mystery of daily life as portrayed in
Pamuk’s Snow. Here, he discusses the complexity of daily life behind its simplicity. He shows that in Snow
the suicide done by young girls in Kars, small town in northeast Turkey is told as daily activity. Somehow behind this weave of suicidal action lays more complex
issues related to the veiling in Turkey. This issue reveals that the simplicity of daily life breathes its own mystery.
C. Theoretical Framework
The numerous studies done on Pamuk’s oeuvre mostly employ Edward Said’s Orientalism or Bhabha’s theory of poscoloniality such as the concept
liminality, mimicry and hibridity, and
Jacques Lacan’s Mirroring Stage, to examine the identity formation and East-
West’s entanglement in Pamuk’s tales. The novelty of this study will be on the account of the iden
tity quest’s analysis within Sufi framework of identity formation.
Not to discount other scholarships, but rather it is hoped that this study will offer a glimpse on the concept of identity formation within the Sufi framework
as it offers different color to the canvas of identity formation exposed in the literature field to those unfamiliar with it.
In Sufi framework, identity construction starts from worldy phenomena and will eventually end in the
divine. It transcends from material into spiritual world. However, at the end of
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the quest, the self must always return to worldly experience and “resuming the quest because the state of attainment cannot be sustained”.
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As a consequence, Sufi framework of identity formation is applied in this research for several reasons. First, it helps to unfold the question of identity as
Pamuk first coined in The White Castle “ Why am I what I am” Pamuk White
58 and compulsively reappear as the soul of his novels along with the longing of past nostalgia and searching for lost love.
Second, Sufi framework of identity formation offers a different paradigm to examine the complexity of identity construction in P
amuk’s novels. As identity searching is part of Sufism, therefore Sufi framework of identity formation will
be a rich instrument to decipher the identity formation in Pamuk‘s tales. The last reason is that Sufi identity framework is the least developed theory used to
understand and analyze Pamuk’s identity quest and its indirect influence on Pamuk’s narrative technique.
D. Orhan Pamuk’s Oeuvre and His Background
