The identity mosaic : stereotypes and the formation of a multifaceted Turkish identity : a study through the works of Orhan Pamuk

Abstract

The stereotype functions to exaggerate the differences of the source in question but at the same time produces them as fully knowable objects. Homi Bhabha’s stereotypes are emphasised in Orientalist discourse because, just like colonial discourse, it turns on the existence of difference and superiority of one side over another. The East and West become oppositional terms in a power-knowledge relationship and the Orient is seen as the negative inversion of the West (Edward Said, 1979). This is true of particular Western works, where the East, and its (Muslim) peoples are depicted as tyrannical, unreasonable, and underdeveloped, attending the moment to be civilised and modernised by West culture and its values. Incidentally, the concept of the stereotype does not only affect the West’s conceptions of the ‘orientalists’ but also the latter's ambivalent conceptions of the West. The texts by Orhan Pamuk; Istanbul: Memories and the City, My Name is Red, Snow, The Black Book, Museum of Innocence, and The White Castle will be primarily analysed in this regard. Pamuk delineates the eternal fight between the East and the West in the minds of his main characters and discusses tensions between Westernisation and fundamentalism. Pamuk’s attempt to elaborate on the importance of accepting a merge in Eastern and Western identities, as exemplified in many of his novels, will also be discussed. He criticises western societies’ attempt to unify the Turkish peoples and also the Turkish peoples’ attempt to categorise themselves with one particular identity. Pamuk stresses that the Turkish identity as a whole is vast and multicultural; an assemblage of characteristics which form an entirely new identity.