Critique of Western Modernity Through Liminal Space in Pamuk's The New Life and My Name is Red

Abstract

The present dissertation undertakes the study of liminal space of the writer Orhani Pamuk who straddles the influences of the west and the east. It examines this space critically in novels like The New Life and My Name isRed. It argues that Pamuk's liminal space allows him to successfully make a critique of the western type of monolithic modernization in Turkey. The foundation of the Turkish modernization project in the twentieth century has been relegating religion to the private sphere. To this end, traditions associated with Islamic civilization were banned from Turkish public life and western imposition became the only acceptable mode in public life. Traditional laws with religious character gave way to modern legal codes and the Arabic script was replaced by its European counterpart. The formation of modem Turkey led the country in to the abyss of contradiction and conflict as it is borne out by the protagonists of the both novels that describe their journey of life. What the analysis of Pamuk's two novels shows that he remains skeptical of Turkey's state-led modernization project. His standpoint seems to be in tune with that of postcolonial critics of Enlightenment who claim that there is not a binary opposition between modernity and religion. Pamuk. like them, believes that the westernization movement in Turkey, which conflates modernization with secularization, has failed to develop a strong philosophical grounding for the masses.