Ankara : Türk Edebiyatı Bölümü, Bilkent Üniversity, 2008.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2008.Includes bibliographical references leaves 105-110.This thesis explores European women characters in selected works of Ahmet
Mithat Efendi (1844-1912) and İsmail Gaspıralı (1851-1914). This particular focus
allows the reader to revise some major claims and generalisations that have been
made on post-Tanzimat literature and brings to the fore the plurality of views and
approaches existing during that period.
In the first part of the thesis, the novels of Ahmet Mithat Efendi titled
Acâyib-i Âlem (1881-82) and Felâtun Bey ile Râkım Efendi (1876) are analysed. It is
pointed out that in those novels the European women guide the Ottoman men thanks
to their knowledge. European women are depicted as dominant characters who
control Ottoman men and reverse the traditional hierarchy between genders.
In the second part of the thesis, the focus is on İsmail Gaspıralı's novels who
display similar characteristics: ―Frengistan Mektupları‖ (1887), Darürrahat
Müslümanları (1887–89/1906), ―Sudan Mektupları‖ (1889), ―Kadınlar Ülkesi‖
(1890–91), ―Molla Abbas Fransevî‘ye Tesadüf: Gülbaba Ziyareti‖ (1908). Here too
European women introduce positive sciences to ―Eastern‖ men and are portrayed as
dominant characters in their relationship with ―Eastern men‖. Moreover Gaspıralı's
utopian and dystopian novels are discussed with particular reference to the
representation of women.Çamkara, AyşeM.S
