20th century is really important in
literature as people had experienced a world war for the first time. Literature
was affected because of the war in different ways in the world. For example,
Modernism in Europe and Nationalism in Turkey occurred as literary movements.
Writers in Europe thought the war changed the moral values of 19th
century and world needed to be changed. They rebelled against to novel frame of
Victorianism and the fake conservativeness in the society. Women in Love is
an example of modernist novels in which breaking some taboos of 19th
century and new type of novel writing can be seen. On the other hand, writers
in Turkey wrote nationalist works to encourage society for an independence war
in 20th century. Their style was more basic and heroic as they
intended to affect the whole society whose education wasn't so high in that
time. Halide Edip Adivar 's “The Shirt of Flame” is one of the best
examples of the Nationalism in Turkish Literature. In Women in Love there
are four main characters and their love affairs to each other and their
experiences during this process are narrated. In The Shirt of Flame there
are three main characters and two men loves the same woman whose only aim is to
fight for the sake of the country. In short, even if both Women in Love
(1920) and The Shirt of Flame (1922) were published in 1920s, they are
completely different works in terms of plot, narrative technique, theme and
style.
Firstly,
even though both of the novel seem to based on the love, their concepts are
different. In Women in Love the love that the writer talks about is
about passion and desire. Hermione loves Burkin, but what she concerns is to
control his life. She tries to kill Burkin with a paperweight when she invited
her friends to her mansion as he changes her plans. Another example of
passionate love in Lawrence's novel is Gerald's love for Gudrun. When they go
to Alps with Burkin and Ursula, a German sculptor takes an interest in Gudrun.
This affair frustrates Gerald and he asks the reason why Gudrun is also
interested in Loerke and tries to strangle her. Passion of Gerald even drives
him to death in the Alps. On the other hand, love theme is not about the
passion or desire but patriotism. The heroin of the novel Ayşe looses her
husband and child,when İzmir is invaded by the Greek. She rejects her suitors
and just to get her two other main characters go to war. When İhsan confesses
his love to Ayşe, she rejects it and says there is a shirt of flame on the
country,so love is not an issue in that circumstance. Patriotism is stated even
by the minor characters in Halide Edip's novel. Kezban, who looses her parents
when Armenians attacked her village, is abducted by a villain who supports
England. Kezban reveals where he hides to the Turkish army because he wants to
kill them all. After this event, Kezban vanishes and probably dies. She puts
her soul into danger for the sake of the independence.
Secondly,
narrative techniques of the writers are also different than each other.
Lawrence uses third person point of view in Women in Love and gives so
many quotations by the characters. He tells the details of the events and after
that characters' own ideas are seen in inverted commas. Thanks to this, reader
understands what the characters think and illustrates the atmosphere. Lawrence
divides the novel into chapters, thanks to which reader is able to understand
the concept of the events before they are read. On the contrary to Lawrence,
Halide Edip uses a different narrative technique. She uses first person
narration to make reader feel a huge sympathy for the main character, Peyami.
All the events are derived from Peyami's diaries. Rather than dividing the
story into chapters, Halide Edip divides them into days thanks to the diary and
uses real chronology of Turkish History.
Thirdly,
themes of Women in Love and The Shirt of Flame are different as
the writers intend different things. Main themes of Lawrence's novel are
marriage and taboos in the society. At the beginning of the novel, he questions
the marriage thanks to Gudrun who asks her sister Ursula that what she thinks
about the marriage. Writer likely criticizes people who gets married to
increase their social position and wealth,because Gudrun implies marriage can
make people in a better position than they are in. However, her relationship
with Gerald ends with a tragedy while Ursula gets married. Lawrence tries to
deal with taboos in the society thanks to Rupert Birkin who has different ideas
against the social norms. He says “There is no production in us now, only
sordid and foul mechanicalness.” and criticizes the modern life. Birkin has
also a gay tendency, which is revealed at the end of the novel. He says he
wants a male partner,too. However, after Gerald dies this wish becomes
impossible. In The Shirt of Flame main themes are patriotism and social
union against The Entente Powers. Heroin of the novel, Ayşe, sacrifices her
life for the country even if she has so many suitors who can make her rich and
happy. She rejects all the proposals and goes to Anatolia to help soldiers as a
nurse as she knows how to make suture. Her story affects people and she becomes
a symbol for the independence of İzmir in the novel as she dedicates her life
to country and becomes a martyr during the Sakarya Valley War against the Greek
in Anatolia. People who supports to be ruled by England are criticized in the
novel. The protagonist Peyami, who thinks ruled by England is the best, gets
shocked when England bombs İstanbul and destroys so many things with their
powerful air forces. After this he goes to a tea party and sees how Ayşe
criticizes French ladies who scorn Turkish people and Turkish people with her good
accent,which surprises the ladies.
Finally, in terms of style both of
the writers have different methods. Lawrence gives so many quotations so that
reader sees what the character thinks. Lawrence states his characters
individual thoughts. However, Halide Edip uses long descriptions about the
events and diminishes the characters' personal life and thoughts most of the
time. For example, she defines a path and people who to war in 5 pages with
lots of simile and metaphor. This difference between the style's of the writers
is because Lawrence uses modernist writing techniques while Halide Edip prefers
realism to evoke people's feelings. Even if they have different styles, both
Lawrence and Halide Edip reflect their life to their novels. Birkin is the reflection
of Lawrence's life in Women in Love, since he has unconventional ideas
about the life,which can easily be misunderstood such as having a male partner
and dying rather than living in this world. Ayşe is the reflection of Halide
Edip's life in The Shirt of Flame, because she knows some foreign
languages and tries to convince people to fight against the enemy as she is
good at rhetoric. Peyami can also be seen as a reflection of Halide Edip's
life, because like Peyami, Halide Edip supported England at first,but then
understood their aim is to change the language,religion and culture of Turkish
society.
Consequently, Women in Love
and The Shirt of Flame were written in 1920s and writers gave what was
needed to societies of their countries. I think literature is a part of the
society and witness the history. In 1920s Turkey had to deal with its
independence,so love or taboos was not an important issue for Turkish people in
that time. Therefore, Halide Edip wrote her novel as it was what society
demanded in that time. On the other hand, England did not have to fight for
their independence, but deal with the effects of modern life and mechanization.
Therefore, Lawrence wrote his ideas about those themes with a love theme. I
liked writers different styles, but enjoyed more while reading The Shirt of
Flame since it was like a history lesson and Halide Edip has good similes
and metaphors,thanks to which I managed to live the war in my head.
Cengiz GÜLER
Sources that I used :
Mina URGAN – History
of English Literature
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