READING ‘THE WHITE CASTLE’ ON THE PLAGUE METAFOR ONCE AGAIN
BEYAZ KALE” ESERİNİ VEBA METAFORU ÜZERİNDEN TEKRAR OKUMAK?

Author : Serap SARIBAŞ
Number of pages : 116-129

Abstract

The novel ‘The White Castle’ is an historical fiction, which depicts the processes of the struggle of superiority between a Hodja from the Ottoman Empire and a Venetian Slave, at the same time it describes this process within the framework of a ‘They-Us’, ‘East-West’ conflict. Orhan Pamuk specifies in ‘the last word’ section of the work, the reason why he focused on Istanbul in the 17th century Ottoman history, as to be able include the works of the foreign and domestic travelers in the fiction written up until that time. The works particularly compiled of the notes of the travelers who came to the Ottoman Empire in 16th and 17th centuries, for diplomatic missions or as observers, about plague epidemics caused the creation of the image of ‘fatalistic Turk’ in the modern period of the European history. In the work, while the hodja representing the Ottoman Empire approaching plague epidemics in a concept of trust in god, the slave representing the West considered the epidemic as a situation to be fought and these two cases were compared with each other. The example of struggle against plague epidemics used in East-West conflicts, considered as a litmus paper by Pamuk and despite old it was considered to be an efficient color included in the work.

Keywords

Fatalistic Turk, plague, ep

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