The Critique of Westernization Through the Types in "Felatun Bey and Rakım Efendi" and "Vah" Novels

Abstract

Until the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire did not realize the superiority of the West. This superiority was noticed with the defeats in the wars. However, the defeats were interpreted as the superiority of the west to the Ottoman Empire only in military and technical terms. The underestimation made caused the innovations to be limited only to the military field. Initially, the innovation movements, which were made only for the needs and did not affect the social life significantly, consisted of the transfer of some military and technical information in this period. During the Tanzimat period, Turkish society experienced great changes in many areas with the influence of Western civilization. These changes have reflected on the fields of art, literature and culture. These changes, which have shaken the life style of the society, have brought some negativities with them. The resulting negativities did not go unnoticed by the authors of the period. Ahmet Mithat Efendi, one of the most important writers of the Tanzimat period, handled novels in which he criticized the situations caused by westernization. He showed the readers the different behaviors of these people by making them experience the same situations and events. He brought criticism to western civilization and westernization over the types he described as squat and squat. He also stated how westernization should be over the types he idealized in these novels. In this study, the features of European and Turkish style in the novels "Felatun Bey and Rakım Efendi" and "Vah" were analyzed and compared with each other. Thus, Ahmet Midhat Efendi's thoughts about western civilization through types and the change of these thoughts over time were tried to be determined.