On The Ambiguity Of Orhan Pamuk's Novels

Orhan Pamuk has always been a controversial Turkish writer.In 2006,He won the Nobel Prize for literature due to "in the quest for melancholic soul of his home city,he had discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures." However,in Turkey,he was accused of insulting Turkish dignity and charged on the highest court.His works had plentiful introspection about Turkish westernization and tried to find a comfortable way for the east and west.This thesis is based on a close reading of the text,mainly analyze "Istanbul:Memories of a City","My name is red" and "The White Castle".In order to show the ambiguity effect which is reflected by narrative,author's identity and allegorical writing.This thesis includes three parts:the introduction,main body and conclusion.The first part of introduction is a review of Orhan Pamuk's writing journey and his opinion on the status of authorhood.The second part used Walter Benjamin's storyteller concept to show that Orhan Pamuk's works are fulls of Turkish history and western novel technique,leading the way to study the feature of his writing.The third part is the literature review.The main part of this thesis is consisted of four chapters.The first chapter is mainly introducing the background of his works.The first section begins with the Tanzimat reform which was promoted after the fall of Ottoman Empire.The reformists admired the western culture and tried to bring western fiction into Turkish.However,these kind of fiction ended up being a political megaphone,full of dogmatism.Although the reformists in this period tried to change the old literary tradition,they still maintain the foundation of Ottoman culture.The second section focus on the extreme westernization in Turkish which was held by Kemal Ataturk,these represents the break with the past as an Ottoman Empire.The third section is mainly about theme of his works,the historical background which is showed in last two section make its novels contain a wrestle between the east and west,thus provide a kind of ambiguity.This ambiguity give a possibility of seeing Orhan's texts in diverse vision.The second chapter is about Orhan Pamuk's narrative style.In the first section,by analyzing"Istanbul:Memories of a City",it reveals a narrative creation by obscuring the narrator.The second section illustrates Pamuk's melancholy and mysterious gray narrative intonation through the black and white images of Istanbul.In the third section,through the mirrored characters in the text,Pamuk and people who lived in Istanbul have an unclear understanding of their own city.Therefore,they have a sense of alienation caused by eternal dislocation between Istanbul and themselves.The third chapter illustrates the phenomenon that the narrator and author in "The White Castle" are inconclusive.In the first section,after close reading the text,it can be sure that each character who can be the author is doubtful and uncertain.The second section uses Foucault's theory to deconstruct authorhood and illustrate the phenomenon of author loss in Pamuk's works.The third section starts from the reading motive,explain how the ambiguous authorhood inspire readers'motivation.The fourth section introduces how the significant phenomenon of other in his texts demonstrates the gap between eastern and western civilization.The fourth chapter illustrates allegoric writing in Pamuk's novel,embody the hidden introspection on reality,the future of Turkish westernize reform.The first section is mainly analyze the novel "My name is red".It's actually reflected that in Pamuk's opinion,he think the extreme westernize reform is doom to fail.The second section describes his exploration of east-west communication model and draws a solution to seeking common ground while reserving differences.The conclusion is a summery of this thesis,exploring the relationship between eastern and western culture is the eternal theme of Pamuk's works.He presents the culture and history of his nation by using obscure narrative language,hidden authorship and allegorical writing.Then through the western writing technique and literary forms,he forms a unique writing style with ambiguity.