Alienation of the individual in Dar Zamanlar by Adalet Ağaoğlu

Abstract

The thesis examines the alienation of the individual in Adalet Adaoğlu’s trilogy Dar Zamanlar, composed of Ölmeye Yatmak, Bir Düğün Gecesi and Hayır... respectively. Narrating the significant political developments and swift transformation processes that have occurred in Turkish society from the 1930s to the 1980s, this study focuses fundamentally on the alienation of Aysel, the main character of the trilogy. It also looks at the manifestation of the alienation experience and the way it is narrated in these novels. The thesis argues that there are some differences in the way the individual’s alienation is experienced in each novel of the trilogy, depending on their time of writing and the narrated time of the novels. It also shows that Aysel’s struggle, as one of the first representatives of women and of the enlightened generation of the Turkish nation, with the Kemalist ideology gradually drags her into alienation in Ölmeye Yatmak; then, in Bir Düğün Gecesi, the feeling of alienation which is triggered by the official ideology is transformed into the destiny of not only Aysel but also the “modern” individual; finally, in Hayır…, alienation is described as an existential problem of the fragmented individual.