"My Name Is Red" And "Huchou" Complex

My Name is Red has established Orhan Pamuk’s position in world literature. With this novel Pamuk would later receive the2006Nobel Prize in Literature. Royal Swedish Academy praised him "in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city,[he] has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures." Pamuk tries his best to delineate melancholic homeland and inter-cultural conflicts.In the Turkish language,"Huzn" means melancholy. One might well say "quest for the melancholic soul" is the dominant hue which runs through the whole passages of My Name is Red. Through the novel between the lines, one can feel the melancholy which is from characters and sceneries. The novel depicts the conflict between Eastern and Western cultures from various angles and levels. The author uses paintings as metaphorical objects. The story sets in the Ottoman Empire of the16th century, whose plot develops with two murders. In the course of cracking the cases, the author interweaves the love story. In all, the novel reconciles the features of murder, romance with whodunit. Its purpose is to quest for the melancholic soul resulted in cultural conflict and to explore cultural conflict itself behind murder.Based on the achievements of previous research, the primary method which is employed to the study of the novel is cultural studies approach. Through close reading of the novel, the paper starts from the analysis of "Huzn" complex (quest for the melancholic soul), and then interprets the novel with Islamic religious background, theory of "the Other" and theory of cultural hybrid. The outline of this dissertation is as follows:The introduction part of this dissertation devotes to making a brief account of Pamuk and his novels, and follows the literature review of My Name is Red, along with the significance and purpose of the research. The first part analyzes "Huzn" from the text, starts with the conflict and "Huzn" and discusses the "Huzn" affection triggered by the conflict of painting tradition. It points out the evidences of "Huzn" in My Name is Red through recalling the ancient Islamic miniature and seeking the identity. The second part analyzes "Huzn" from cultural perspective, deciphers the religious connotation of "Huzn" with the help of Islamic doctrines and Sufi mystics. And this part employs Said’s theory of "the Other" to further analyze My Name Is Red. The conclusion part puts forward that Pamuk approves of cultural hybrid and blending by applying Homi Bhabha’s theory of cultural hybrid to study My Name Is Red."Huzn" origins from the sharp conflict and contradiction in the process of cultural clash and fusion. And its essence is caused by the gap between nationality and religion. Only if abandoning the narrow national centralism, can one quests the hybrid and coexistence between the two cultures.