Town Perception in Kemal Bekir's novel The Strangers

Abstract

Kemal Bekir's Yabancılar tells the story of events in an unnamed Anatolian town that completely affect the fate of Sıtkı and his family. While these events contain elements of criticism, they also criticise the positioning of the town society according to the social-class status of the actors of the events. On the otherhand, the depictions of the town, which attract attention throughout the novel, harbour some perceptual signs. When these signs are considered together with the theme of The Strangers, they support the subject matter of the town with its environment-space. Kemal Bekir describes the dullness of the space and the monotony of life, and these descriptions follow a course from movement to stagnation from the beginning to the end of the novel. In this way, the work tries to give the reader the psychological effects on people by establishing a unity of place and event. The attitude, thought structure, discourse and actions of the towns people in the face of the events can be seen in the process. In this context, the study tries to deal with the view of the town, the structure, the events, the space-human unity in Kemal Bekir's work, the changes from the beginning to the end of the novel and the state and reflections in the perception of the characters. In this way, it will be possible to make sense of the view of the town, the perception of the environment and the author's bets on this subject on the axis of events, connections and characters.