Proceedings of the International Social Sciences and Humanities Conference
Year: 2024
DOI:
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The Tragedy of People Living in the Spiral of Fear and Violence in Yaşar Kemal’s Kimsecik Novel Series
Nurullah Ulutaş and Erdem Baykal
ABSTRACT:
In this study, through the novel Kimsecik our aim will be to make a social, historical and psychological analysis on fear and violence. Fundamentally, it is necessary to state that Yaşar Kemal’s novel reveals very different aspects of violence, such as war, the poverty and migration due to this poverty. It should also be noted that the content of the novel deals with a historical period. The content of the novel is the 15-year period from the Sarıkamış defeat in 1915 to the 1930s. So, we have the World War I, the foundation of the New Republic of Turkey after the Ottoman Empire and its early period. When the historical conditions of the period are considered, it is necessary to see that in periods like this, violence and fear coexist by amplifying each other. Another reason why the novel presents violence and fear in an impressive way is that it is also an autobiography of the writer in the form of novel. The novel deals with his childhood period. In this way, through a child, we could understand better the social and psychological aspects of fear, because, the child experiences the fears brought about by social problems. But also, making them more accessible and meaningful with imagination. The child not only reflects the fear but through his imagination makes it more and more understandable and interpretable. In summary, we became the witnesses of a child’s approach to the concepts of violence and fear and a widowed woman’s struggle to live in society and survive the oppression and harassment applied to her. Behind of all this, we can see the poor Anatolian people’s financial difficulties, struggle with epidemics, , exploiting each other, their cunning, their respect and fear of state power. Despite all this violence, people’s longing for a dreamland where they can be happy never ends. Yaşar Kemal’s novel, which is in the socialist realist line, also expresses the desire to be free from violence and fear, because these two work together and fear can make a person do anything.
keywords: Yaşar Kemal, Social Realism, Kimsecik, Fear, Violence