Blurring the Boundary between the East and West in Pamuk's The White Castle

Abstract

The thesis is about the east-west dichotomy or the traditional division between the eastern and western world which is man-made rather than natural. The White Castle, which is characterized by a confusion or loss of identity brought on in part by the conflicts between European and Islamic values, focuses on the false binary concepts made by the western countries. The novel attempts to subvert the deep-rooted tension (or dichotomy) between east and west, traditional communalism and modern secularism. Such binary concepts often get elaborated treatment in Pamuk's literature. They are often startling, disturbing and unsettling or even mysteriously exhilarating, as is the novel undertaken in this thesis. The novel has been studied through the perspective of Orientalism in which the westerners have termed the word to inferiorize the east. In fact, they are only myth because in the real sense, they do not exist. The novel is about a captivating work of historical fiction and a treatise on the riddle of identity and the relations between East and West. The novel revolves around a young Italian scholar, the unnamed narrator, sailing from Venice to Naples who is taken prisoner and delivered to Constantinople. The narrator falls into the custody of a scholar known as Hoja, the master, a man who is exactly like him. The narrator, being slave, instructs his master Hoja. However, Hoja wants to know more: why he and his captive are the persons they are and whether, given knowledge of each other's the most intimate secrets, they could actually exchange identities. The theme of the novel includes the message that the east and west are complementary to each other rather than the ruler and the ruled. The Turkish scientist settles in Italy whereas a Venetian enjoys his life and post of power as a royal astrologer at the court in Istanbul. They learn each other that east west dichotomy is merely a myth.