Research Methodology Benefits and Significance

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4. Research Methodology

In this study I mainly employ the method of library research. There are two kinds of sources that are used; they are primary and secondary sources. The method applied in conducting the study is qualitative approach, while the primary sources are novels written by Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish novelist, entitled My Name is Red 2001 and The White Castle 1998. To support the primary data, the secondary data are taken from books, Pamuk’s non-fictions: İstanbul: Memories of the City 2006 and Other Colours 2008, journals, articles, criticisms, interview, book review, and videos discussing and analysing Orhan Pamuk and his literary works. The data, then, are analysed to discover the connection between the socio-culture and historical condition and the events portrayed in both novels. The research is conducted in several steps. The first step of this study is to find the topic to be discussed. The second step is to select the literary works that is going to be analysed. The third step is the technical reading of the novels as the fundamental step before turning to further analysis. After formulating the problems related to the topic, finding the secondary sources and the appropriate approach are employed in the analysis. The next step is to answer the formulated problems. Here, I attempt to apply the theories on Orientalism and Postcolonialism, reviews, and criticism from the secondary sources to analyse the primary sources. At last, I conclude the important points of the analysis as the result of the analysis and give some suggestions to the future researchers who want to analyse My Name is Red and The White Castle. 11

5. Benefits and Significance

This study is conducted with the aim to reveal how the agenda of Turkish modern identity—which is represented by the Italian Renaissance art and European technology—challenges the Turks’ life, tradition, culture, art, and identity, how the oscillation of the East and the West and Turkey’s complex desire to imitate the Other, and the solutions that Pamuk offers to the predicament through his works. My Name is Red and The White Castle have all aspects, which can sharpen the readers’ awareness on the seduction of modernity that can disrupt their culture and traditions and also lead to identity crisis—or even lose it. Through these two stories, the readers can learn that the Turks have orientalised themselves—in other words: Orientalised by the oriental—by feeling inferior to the art they make and to the knowledge and science they master, for they believe that West can bring them to modernity. For the Indonesian readers, this study can help them to enrich their understanding and insight to the different form of Orientalism that is presented in the two tales studied. Additionally, it is also hoped to raise their awareness regarding to the identity crisis that is as a result of the East-West encounter and the radical ideology that can endanger unity of Indonesia. In addition, the readers need to respect the multiculturalism and colonialism around them. It is for the reason that Indonesia also faces the same problem as Turkey on purification performed by the extremists that want to simplify the complexity of Indonesia’s multiculturalism. Moreover, another hope is that this study will improve the readers’ knowledge on the uniqueness and variety of the Mediterranean literature 12 oeuvre, especially on Turkey’s fiction, which is still less studied by the Indonesian academic, especially the students of Sanata Dharma University. However, learning other people’s culture and tradition is not a sin. Actually, it is useful to help the Indonesian readers and academics to be acquainted with their culture and tradition more as Pamuk also mentions that we can only know our identity by imitating the Other. 33 This study is also conducted with the hope to raise the reader’s awareness regarding the identity degradation as a result of the encounter between the East and the West tradition. I hope that the Indonesian readers can filter the Western traditions and choose which one is suitable to their custom, belief, and culture so that they can still maintain and hold their tradition and identity as Indonesian. It is for the reason that nowadays I still find many young generations who are reluctant to deal with the Indonesian culture and traditions, which have high value, and proud to have, use, or consume Western or American products and perform their traditions. My vision is that the young generations can still embrace modernity without leaving their tradition and identity as Indonesian.

6. Chapter Outline