#mademoiselle de courton

[faintingheroine]

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #nihal #bihter #firdevs #behlül #adnan bey #beşir #mademoiselle de courton #bülent

[literatureismyentirepersonality]

Aşk-ı Memnu: What is Love?

(baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more)

I am referencing this translation of the text by E. A. Deverell.

In Aşk-ı Memnu, Halit Ziya forces us to question what exactly love means. In this ask, I made the somewhat sweeping claim that Halit Ziya does not allow any character to experience love as a magical and inexplicable thing. Having thought about this, I would actually like to say that he only allows one character to experience love in this manner.

But firstly, I would like to make another bizarre claim: Nihal and Behlül were the most compatible couple in the novel— at least based on how they love.

As I said in the previous post, I suspect almost every character in the novel does not actually love other characters, but rather is in love with love itself, or their concept of love.

[Mademoiselle de Courton] had a tenacious need to love. The old chastity of this weary heart, who had not been able to know her mother, not been able to love her father, not been able to feel in her bosom any tie to anyone, and who writhed in the absence of love, always looked for some way to expend itself. She would befriend the children around her, the servants of the house in which she lived, her cat, her parrot, and would spill out to them the hidden treasure of her heart. But one day, she would suddenly discover a hollowness opening up in these things that were spoken, and seeing, with bitter clarity, upon what a barren, sandy desert the fountain of her affection flowed, she would become an enemy to the children, the servants, the cats, and the parrots that five minutes earlier had been her friends. (Chapter Three)

Mademoiselle de Courton wants to fill a void. She feels she has never had an attachment; she is in love with the idea of attachment. What precisely draws her to love Nihal? Halit Ziya insists that it is her own need to love, and not any feelings towards Nihal. She desperately needs to care for another human.

Adnan Bey’s relationship to his children is also wrapped up in a fear of loneliness. It seems telling that he sees his relation to them as a ‘sacrifice’, and a matter of ‘sense’. (These exact words may not reflect the original, @faintingheroine may be able to speak better to the exact meaning of this passage from Chapter Two.) He wants to fulfil duties and materially improve his and his children’s lives.

Peyker and Nihat are arguably in love not with one another but with the family unit; Firdevs is clearly in love only with money and personal beauty and youth, a husband being a means to her ends.

Behlül speaks always of love in terms of a story, in terms of the book of his romances. He wants to love, in the passionate poetic sense of the word, to worship, almost.

Bihter is painfully incompatible with Behlül in this regard. She does not wish to love or to be loved (even if she tells herself this is so), but rather to make love. She has material needs that she wishes to fulfil, and Behlül could never get from her that picture of the poetic damsel he so desires. At face value, her material concern might align her better with Adnan Bey, but this does not work at all in the novel. Bihter’s material needs clash with Adnan Bey’s. They cannot satisfy one another when they both seek to satisfy themselves.

Nihal, on the other hand, desperately wishes to be an object of love. Her father’s love, Bihter’s love, Bülent’s love, Behlül’s, Beşir’s, anybody’s love, so long as she can feel that she is loved in some way. She does not love the people she has relationships with, but their reciprocation of her attentions.

The novel is dominated by upper-class characters who cannot love in any natural way. There must always be a mechanic behind it, a selfishness, a pathology. Sometimes it is disturbing to behold them, as Behlül imposes his literary fantasies on woman after woman, fancying to love each one in turn.

But Beşir does not operate under these conditions. Why should he love Nihal? What good does it bring him? Is it the idea of loving her that attracts him? I would argue that he actually does love Nihal, truly— platonically or otherwise— and specifically that he loves Nihal the girl, rather than the relationship they share. He in fact puts that relationship at risk when he disobeys her, but it is all in service of Nihal the girl and done out of love. There are many, many problems with this dynamic, but it does seem interesting to me that the only person to truly feel love for another person as a person in this novel may be a slave. His society treats him as less than human, but only he is humane.

#Aşk-ı Memnu #beşir #what is love #halit ziya uşaklıgil

[princesssarisa]

Nihal for the character ask?

Favorite thing about them: As a person, what I like best about her is the kindness and concern she shows to the sick Beşir, even if she doesn't really care as deeply as she should. On a meta level, I like the sheer complexity and emotional depth of her character, so unexpected for a 12-to-15-year-old girl in a turn-of-the-20th-century novel written by a man. In a more conventional book, she would just be a sweet, innocent foil to her adulterous stepmother Bihter, but she's most definitely not. On the one hand, she's spoiled, bitter, often irrational, manipulative, and much too possessive. But on the other hand, we can sympathize with her pain at being "abandoned" by her loved ones, especially because her father's remarriage comes at the same time as (and is partly motivated by) her transition from a child to a young woman in society, with the expectation of soon leaving her home to marry some stranger. Add to these her assorted other qualities, like her cleverness and her moments of genuine kindness, and she arguably has the richest characterization in the entire book.

Least favorite thing about them: Well, if she were a real person, I'd dislike her spiteful, vindictive tendencies, but that's part of what makes her interesting. As a character... I'm tempted to agree with @ariel-seagull-wings about disliking the idea that her rivalry with Bihter was inevitable, that stepmothers and stepdaughters are always rivals. But since (unless I'm forgetting something) it's only Mademoiselle de Courton who says this, I'll argue that we the readers don't need to take that view, per se.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I'm uncomfortable with change.

*I'm sometimes afraid of abandonment.

*I like Classical music.

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I don't have a stepmother.

*I've always been strong and healthy.

*I don't play the piano.

Favorite line: "Father, when a child becomes a young girl she finally becomes a bride, doesn’t she? Do you know? I have made a decision, a decision that can’t be changed: Little Nihal won’t become a bride. You know you used to ask me when I was little: You used to say, Nihal, who will you marry. I, doubtless with a a serious conviction, used to say: You. Don’t panic, now I am not of that opinion, but I will stay by your side, do you understand, father? Always together with you…”

brOTP: Bülent (when she's not acting like he betrayed her just by innocently calling Bihter "mother") and Mademoiselle de Courton.

In crossover-land, I might also like her to meet either of the two Catherines from Wuthering Heights – she shares traits with both, combining an upbringing more like Catherine Linton's with the selfishness, pathology, need for adoration, and (eventual) emotion-aggravated sickliness of Catherine Earnshaw, and dealing with the hard transition from girlhood to womanhood too. I don't know if they could ever be friends or if they'd hate each other, though.

OTP: None; she's not psychologically ready for romance and might never be.

nOTP: Behlül, or her father.

Random headcanon: Her illness is some form of epilepsy (her fainting spells are actually seizures), and she's on the autism spectrum too. After all, about 10% to 12% of people with ASD are also epileptic, and it would explain a lot about her personality: black and white thinking, dislike of change, not wanting to leave the safety of childhood, etc.

Unpopular opinion: If it's unpopular to think of her as a unique, complex, morally gray character, and not just an ingénue foil to Bihter, then that's my unpopular opinion. Although I think anyone who thinks she's a stock ingénue must either only know a bad adaptation, not the book, or else lack basic reading comprehension!

Song I associate with them: None at the moment.

Favorite picture of them: These pictures from @faintingheroine of Itır Esen in the 1975 TV version.

#aşk ı memnu #nihal #character ask #fictional characters #ask game #turkish literature

[ariel-seagull-wings]

Aşk-ı Memnu Characters Favorite Shakespeare Plays

Asked by @faintingheroine

Nihal: Hamlet and Cymbeline

Bihter: Troilus and Cressida

Firdevs: Anthony and Cleopatra

Peyker: The Merry Wives of Windsor and Measure for Measure

Nihat Bey: The Merchant of Venice

Mademoiselle de Courton: Richard II

Adnan Bey: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Behlul: Love’s Labours Lost and Taming of the Shrew

Bulent: Henry V

Beşir: The Tempest

#tumblr mutuals #tagged #faintingheroine #literature #shakespeare #ask i memnu #aşk-ı memnu #halit ziya uşaklıgil #bardolatry

[teleserieamorprohibido]

Zerrin Tekindor

Deniz de Courton | “Matmazel” hija de una mujer turca y un hombre francés. Deniz reside en Turquía, en el hogar de la familia Ziyagil, como instructora personal de los hijos de Adnan Ziyagil, Nihal y Bülent.

#Deniz de Courton #Mademoiselle #Matmazel #Zerrin Tekindor

[faintingheroine]

The Dual Plotlines of Aşk-ı Memnu

“Finally that thing that had been feared, that had been delayed for a year, but that could never be kept from occurring, was finally beginning. Bihter and Nihal were taking out the claws that longed to tear at each other. The old girl was saying to herself, ‘whose fault is it? No one’s!… In the affair itself… Step-mother and daughter! After all, the lives of these people are, for all of history, either a comedy or a tragedy. How will this play end between Bihter and Nihal? I am afraid lest it be a comedy for one and a tragedy for the other…’”

(Chapter 7) (italics mine)

I can’t believe that people still say that the book focused on Nihal in equal measure by accident. The above passage makes it clear that this book will have two plotlines, one focusing on Bihter the other focusing on Nihal, and one will end in tragedy and the other will have an happy ending. The only ambiguity is which one is which. Like it is actually spelled out for you.

I can’t believe that I am the only person who noticed this. With my other observations on Aşk-ı Memnu I typically build on already existing academic writings but this observation is mine alone. I hope nobody will steal it before I can get to write it in an academic legitimate paper because I already said it on Turkish Twitter and then deleted the tweets some months later like an idiot. Some person can steal it and use it in their thesis and I can’t object. (Or can I?)

@vickythestrange

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #nihal #bihter #comedy/tragedy #mademoiselle de courton

[faintingheroine]

Aşk-ı Memnu’s biggest mystery: Does Adnan Bey go to any kind of work?

Aşk-ı Memnu’s most unrealistic aspect: Mademoiselle de Courton’s strong grasp on Turkish after having lived in a Turkish home between the ages of 50 and 56. It is very difficult for someone that age to learn a completely unrelated language and let’s face it no Western expat in any Eastern country gives a fuck.

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #adnan bey #mademoiselle de courton

[faintingheroine]

Please explain your opinions.

Let’s fight.

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #nihal #bihter #behlül #firdevs #adnan bey #beşir #mademoiselle de courton #polls #aşk ı memnu polls

[faintingheroine]

From Zeynep Çelik’s Europe Knows Nothing About the Orient:

The Princess Nazli Hanum, by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #mademoiselle de courton #europe knows nothing about the orient #orientalism

[faintingheroine]

@longagoitwastuesday

Aşk-ı Memnu in general is pretty sober on the subject of how Westerners see Turks, especially with Mademoiselle de Courton’s initial expectations from a Turkish house:

“Mlle de Courton had a desire to fulfill in Istanbul: to enter a Turkish home and to live a Turkish life in this Turkish country… As she entered Adnan Bey’s yalı, her heart had raced with joy as though she were entering her true, dream home. When inside, this joy turned to astonishment. She had imagined a large, marble hall, a dome supported by stone columns, divans covered in oriental rugs and worked here and there with mother-of-pearl, and seated upon them pairs of women whose naked feet were dyed with henna, whose eyes were lined with kohl, whose heads were always veiled, and who slept all day to the sound of the negroes’ tabor, or who never put down their ruby and emerald encrusted hookah pipes while the scented smoke wafted from a small silver brazier set in one corner. With the relics of what she remembered of the myths and legends of all of those western writers and painters, she had never considered the possibility that a Turkish house could be anything else. When she found herself in the stylish little parlour of the yalı, she had looked at her guide with questioning eyes.

‘Really! Are you sure you have brought me to a Turkish house?’

The old girl had never been able to accept that she had been deceived in her dreams, and though she had thus lived a genteel Turkish life for years, in her heart she still wants to believe that the oriental life of her imagination must surely exist.”

(Chapter 3)

But the below passage always struck me as kind of a “restoration of honor”:

“He remembered one in particular, a German Jewess met at a show of the Operaia Italiana, who, hearing a rumour that was being circulated at that time, that Behlül was to be consul general to some fashionable place, had gone mad with the dream of being the wife of a Turkish civil servant. Beginning that evening, she had spoken to him of marriage every time they saw each other. This story had ended with the mother, who, unable to give her daughter away as Behlül’s wife, had given herself instead. Then Behlül’s eyes were drawn to the shelf where an elegant veil of crimson satin was draped on the head of a statue of Vishnu.”

(Chapter 11)

I actually respect it. As his memoirs reveal, Halit Ziya is completely aware of the poor view Europeans have on Turks, he might have wanted to create his alternative reality in fiction.

Anyway, I thought of this because for the past few hours I have been looking into Downton Abbey and the erroneously named Turkish diplomat Kemal Pamuk (Turks didn’t have surnames until 1934) could have been a Behlül type. I can see Behlül having such an “adventure” as Kemal Pamuk did in Downton Abbey.

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #behlül #mademoiselle de courton #downton abbey #halit ziya uşaklıgil

[faintingheroine]

Mademoiselle de Courton who first started hearing Turkish on a regular basis at the age of 50 speaks better Turkish in more elaborate sentences than Beşir who had been at Adnan Bey’s mansion since at least the age of 8. This might have something to do with him being a servant, and it is not like he speaks broken Turkish, but he consistently speaks in short sentences. It is a bit stereotypical. As far as I know the Black character in Karagöz plays speaks in short sentences too.

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #beşir #mademoiselle de courton

[faintingheroine]

“There were among those operas ordered by her father one by Wagner that Mlle de Courton, with an absolute ban, prevented from being played. Nihal, on the contrary, took up this forbidden object every day, and watching for a moment when Bülent particularly angered the governess, wanted to exercise it on the piano. Then Mlle de Courton would forget Bülent and run to the instrument.

‘But my child, I have told you a thousand times that to play this a person must have German hands. You will break your fingers, not only that, you will ruin your ideas, your musical taste. Think of a tempest that knocks over chimneys, tosses aside tiles, roots up trees, rolls down boulders; think of that cacophony, make of it a musical piece, and there you have Monsieur Wagner!…’”

(Chapter 3) (italics mine)

I forgot the italicized part. I love her.

In the original pre-simplification version of the text the piece she plays from Wagner is specified as from “Tan Hausër”. Listening to it I found Mademoiselle de Courton kind of right in her assessment:

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #nihal #mademoiselle de courton #wagner #Youtube #opera

[faintingheroine]

“While Adnan Bey was trying to draw her into the sphere of his thoughts with a roundabout speech about how his life could not continue under these conditions, she was still thinking. When eventually, through the clouds of this speech, the idea of marriage flashed and caught like lightning in her vision, Mlle de Courton stood surprised, astonished, mouth half open. No, in none of her stories could she find a practical application of this case. She disbelieved, and unable to stop herself, despite all of her pretensions to formality with Adnan Bey, said, ‘You are joking!…’

Once she understood that this joke was an awful truth, the old girl could not sit still, but stood up.

‘But Nihal, but Nihal! This will kill her, do you understand?’ she was saying.

Then seeing that Adnan Bey lowered his eyes and did not answer, she felt that such a complaint could find no response in this father who was driven mad if Nihal’s head ached. Finally Adnan Bey answered.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You are mistaken. You have not examined Nihal so closely. Only, there are a few precautions that it will be necessary to take. In fact, this is the purpose in consulting you…’

So this essential duty had devolved to her. She struggled to avoid accepting, she even said that she would run away from this house in order not to be obliged to execute this charge. Then all at once she thought that Nihal would depend on her at this time more than ever. It was necessary to place a heart between this awful truth and that delicate body, to soften the blow, and that heart could only be her own.”

(Chapter 3)

1) Come on, Mademoiselle de Courton. Have you not read any novel where a stepmother arrived at the house? Later on you do think: “The old girl was saying to herself, ‘whose fault is it? No one’s!… In the affair itself… Step-mother and daughter! After all, the lives of these people are, for all of history, either a comedy or a tragedy. How will this play end between Bihter and Nihal? I am afraid lest it be a comedy for one and a tragedy for the other…’”.

2) In any adaptation of the story, in the radio drama, even in the 1975 miniseries, this scene seems to have the subtext of “Mademoiselle is in love with Adnan”. In the radio drama Mademoiselle seems more jealous of Bihter than Nihal is!

In the 2003 opera and 2008 soap opera, it is plain text that Mademoiselle is in love with Adnan. In the former she sings “Je t’aime Adnan” which is unrealistic because I think she would be more inclined to sing “Je vous aime Adnan”.

In the recent Bihter film we don’t see this scene because the film is supposedly from Bihter’s perspective (but tbh it is not consistent in this regard).

In the book this isn’t the case. Mademoiselle really is concerned about Nihal. Nihal’s well-being is her main concern. Which I love. At least there is someone in the book who doesn’t have a romantic motivation!

@muzikalsiren

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #mademoiselle de courton #radio drama #aşk ı memnu 1975 #opera #aşk ı memnu 2008 #bihter the film

[faintingheroine]

The Reason Why Bihter Cannot Be A Fleabag

Bihter being a sort of knowing cynical Fleabag figure in this new movie is so hilarious because I don’t think Bihter is a character who looks at the world around her too critically. She is pretty earnest and she mainly blames herself, her own mother and Behlül towards the end. She never blames Adnan or the marriage institution or anything like that.

Like Nihal says this:

“This wedding story gave strength and liveliness to the comedic bent in Nihal. The whole wedding house drifted before Adnan Bey’s eyes in fragmented scenes ornamented with oddities and amusements. After she had drawn an imagined wedding scene, like an inspired artist who creates life with two strokes of a pencil, she was standing before her father, and imitating the bride who sulked in order to look serious.

‘Only think,’ she was saying, ‘hours will pass by, days will pass by, and you will always be like this, always sulking. It’s as if you regret being a bride, as if you resent all of these people who have come to see you… And then afterwards, no, even before…’

Nihal was raising her finger in an admonishing gesture. ‘There is another thing too, as disgusting as this is laughable,’ she was saying. Then, in order to recount the lady who sat on the floor cushion, she was sitting down on the carpet, closing her eyes, swaying her head slowly from side to side to the intoxicating melodies of the saz, and throwing out the blessing, ‘ah! Long may you live!’

This woman was to pick her up, take her to Kalpakçılarbaşı, and sell her to a man whom she had not seen or known until that day, like cheap goods.”

(Chapter 13)

The last sentence is the most openly feminist sentence in the whole novel.

Nihal also says this:

“Behlül looked on with a pained smile. There was such a deep remonstrance in this smile that the jesting smile on Nihal’s lips vanished instantly, and she said, ‘Behlül, will you tell me? Why do you wish to marry me? Confess that this is nothing more than a joke. You would admit the possibility of anything but the possibility of this, this joke, of marrying little Nihal, that girl who looked like the pictures on Japanese fans. Yet chance brought before you a woman bound to her chair, looking to amuse her empty hours, and a father searching for an opportunity to be left at peace with his young wife. They had on their hands a girl doomed to be handed over to the first suitor who appeared. You were thought of first because you were closest. You too, were a little tired, a little bored of your life, you were looking for a little change. When this jest rolled before you, you reached out your hand. Here is a fine toy, you said to yourself, an excellent diversion for a while! Easy to discard once it’s broken…’

Nihal looked at Behlül again with a small smile, then she added, with an elegant gesture in the manner of a child throwing away a broken toy, ‘I think that now it’s time to throw away this plaything.’”

(Chapter 19)

Both Nihal and Bihter take life too seriously to be able to successfully deal with a person like Behlül, but Bihter even more so.

Like, see this conversation:

“The young woman suddenly asked the old girl, in a voice that acquired a confidential air, ‘Mademoiselle! What was wrong with Nihal, if you please? You are privy to all her secrets…’

There was the unconcealable scent of an argument in the air of this voice, that could not escape Mlle de Courton’s sensitivity.

She answered calmly. ‘What secret can a girl of Nihal’s age have to hide, Madame? Because Nihal has no secret, I am privy to all she does, and I think everyone knows as much as I do.’

Bihter lifted her head and cast a meaningful glance at the old girl’s calm face.

‘You are inviting my curiosity, Mademoiselle. It seems I am behind everyone in being privy to Nihal’s feelings. For some time I have been seeing such small things in her, and especially since the morning, such strange sulks… Would you believe it? Mademoiselle, let me confess something to you, some days I think there are people in the house who wish to take advantage of the child’s weak nerves.’ – Bihter’s smile was gaining strength – ‘For instance, all those servants who are doubtless against me… You know that I have done everything possible for a woman to do in order to love Nihal, to make myself loved by her. I still do, don’t I, Mademoiselle?…’

Such a conversation was taking place for the first time between Mlle de Courton and Bihter. Suddenly the old girl found herself in a difficult position between a daughter and a step-mother; suddenly she felt that today, right here, in this country realm, in the dialogue that took place before that ball game, her situation in the house would be changed, and then a life would begin that was insufferable for her. Finally that thing that had been feared, that had been delayed for a year, but that could never be kept from occurring, was finally beginning. Bihter and Nihal were taking out the claws that longed to tear at each other. The old girl was saying to herself, ‘whose fault is it? No one’s!… In the affair itself… Step-mother and daughter! After all, the lives of these people are, for all of history, either a comedy or a tragedy. How will this play end between Bihter and Nihal? I am afraid lest it be a comedy for one and a tragedy for the other…’

She wanted to give Bihter a response that left no opportunity for another conversation.

‘Madame, you do your duty so well that you are being perfectly successful in both loving Nihal and in making yourself loved by her. I don’t think that anyone could be found who would try to take advantage of Nihal’s weak nerves. If you see small things in Nihal that cause you concern, instead of ascribing them to the influence of another person, I believe it would be best to turn against those weak nerves themselves. I know such people in the house who…’ – the old governess was disclosing her intention with a kind smile that wanted to describe who she was speaking of – ‘yes, I know such people who are as mindful of their responsibilities as you, and are as successful as you in its performance.’

Bihter could not hide a small anxiety. Now her hands were moving nervously. While her eyes followed the ball that Nihal threw, her hands were worrying the silk tassels of her headscarf.

‘Mademoiselle,’ she said in a dry voice, ‘I do not enjoy roundabout sentences. Of whom are you speaking?’

The old girl replied instantly. ‘Not at all roundabout, but a very simple sentence. In particular, I speak of myself.’”

(Chapter 7)

Bihter takes herself so seriously here. Almost laughably so. She has the air of a little girl playing at being a mother to her doll. Even Mademoiselle de Courton, the sentimental “old maid”, is better at seeing the situation from the outside.

So, Bihter is a person who takes life and herself seriously. She is a person who can easily convince herself to believe in a lie. She is also a person who does care about what others think, much more than Nihal does (Nihal does care deeply about being loved by the few people she loves, but she doesn’t care as much about what others think of her).

Like, Bihter isn’t the character to look towards if you want a woman who is cynical and sarcastic and who critically engages with the world around her.

Bihter is a rebel because of what she does, not because of what she says and thinks. A mocking, knowing Fleabag vibe doesn’t fit her at all. (Neither does it fit Nihal or anyone in the book really, but it fits Bihter the least).

Why even adapt this book instead of any other at this point? It is the Netflix Persuasion all over again.

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #bihter #nihal #mademoiselle de courton #aşk ı memnu 2023 #fleabag #farah zeynep abdullah #persuasion

[faintingheroine]

Would you be willing to elaborate on your thoughts about the handling of the Madonna-Whore complex in Aşk-ı Memnu? How do you think Halit-Ziya's approach compares to others'? (I know we've mentioned it regards Rebecca, but I wonder about Anna Karenina, Jane Eyre, or perhaps other works I am not familiar with)

Thank you so much for asking this question. I have been dying to write new Aşk-ı Memnu meta and didn’t have any ideas.

I said before that Aşk-ı Memnu thoroughly subverts the Madonna-Whore dichotomy but to be fair that was an exaggeration. It doesn’t exactly subvert the dichotomy, otherwise many readers wouldn’t leave the book with the impression that Nihal was merely the morally righteous ingenue. But I would say that it complicates the dichotomy quite a bit.

On the first glance Nihal is the Madonna, the young, vulnerable, passive, virtuous girl. And Bihter is the adulterous Whore who cheats on her husband and is primarily motivated by her sexual appetite. Even their physical characteristics conform to their respective stereotypes, Nihal is a lean blonde, Bihter is a voluptuous brunette. Yet they are also quite a bit more complicated. Bihter is fairly nice and patient for most of the novel, she wants to be a maternal figure, she is vulnerable and emotional, she is assumed to be the Whore even before she truly becomes one and that’s what essentially dooms her. She also commits suicide ultimately because she doesn’t want to be seen as the Whore. Nihal is jealous, selfish, spiteful, possessive. Her maternal feeling is a girl play-acting with her dolls, not the self-sacrifice expected from the Madonna. She is both more and less sexual than she has to be: She doesn’t really want romance or marriage but she is sexual enough to have a dream where Behlül kisses her:

“As Mlle de Courton leaned over her for one last goodbye kiss, Nihal was showing the tip of her thin eyebrow to someone in her sleep.

‘Right here,’ she was saying.”

(Chapter 16)

She doesn’t want to become a real mother or an adult in general, she is content with being a child and that seems to be all she will be at the end.

Interestingly, to contrast our protagonists’ depth, the novel gives us more stereotypical Whore (Firdevs) and Madonna (Peyker and Mademoiselle) figures. Firdevs is interesting and iconic but she is the Whore thorough and thorough in her sexual desires, gold-digging, cunning and lack of maternal feeling. By having a super-Whore in Firdevs, Uşaklıgil managed to make Bihter less of a Whore. Peyker is a “family woman” who continually gives birth and is content with family life. She is arguably putting on a front to society to disassociate herself from Firdevs’s reputation, but ultimately she isn’t a very deep character. Mademoiselle is more of a quintessential Madonna. She lacks any sexual feeling and is eternally a virgin (she is a devout Catholic too, coming from a religion where chastity is valuable in itself in contrast to Islam where the highest position a woman can achieve is being a mother) yet with a desire to mother others’ children. Yet this claim on children who are alien to herself is a form of “forbidden love” in itself and the book occasionally has a sardonic look at Mademoiselle though she is mostly a positive figure.

What is interesting is that the narrative voice incorporates the perspectives of all these women. While talking about Firdevs the narrative voice tells us of a woman who doesn’t like being a mother, but then tells us that all women have an empty cradle in their hearts while talking about Mademoiselle. I think the authorial voice does believe that Firdevs is unnatural for not liking being a mother and Nihal is unnatural for being destined to be an eternal child:

“The preservation of this physicality had lent Nihal a perpetual childishness. Nihal, who now at fifteen remained a child to all around her, appeared to be destined to stay that way even tomorrow, when she was called a woman, a wife, or a mother.”

(Chapter 18)

But, these women are so well-written and complex that this authorial judgment about what is “natural” doesn’t effect the novel’s quality or timelessness.

We can also talk about Behlül’s Madonna-Whore complex, since this term is actually about men’s views on women rather than what women actually are. The novel shows us Behlül’s views on women extensively, and he views Firdevs with disgust as she is a sexual middle-aged woman (gasp!) and idealizes Nihal as an untouched lily, has quite a belittling view of Mademoiselle as an “old girl” etc. Yet I think the incorporation of Behlül’s perspective in the midst of all these complex female characters is ironic since the women in the novel defy his stereotypical views through their complexity.

I do fear talking about Anna Karenina since I read it a decade ago and it is often considered one of the greatest novels ever written. But I remember Kitty being a character with not much depth and being a more or less straightforward foil to Anna. But again, it has been a long time since I read the book.

I would say in Madame Bovary, Emma Bovary’s sexual desires are less emphasized than Bihter’s? Emma is a lustful woman for sure, but the main focus is on her boredom I feel. With Bihter there is a surprising amount of focus on her sexual frustration. It is the reason for her Fall. There isn’t a Madonna in Madame Bovary, or rather Emma incorporates Madonna within herself at various points of the novel, and I will leave it at that.

Rebecca is quite comparable to Aşk-ı Memnu in some ways. Rebecca with her elegance, charisma, beauty and sexual appetite is quite the Bihter figure to the narrator’s jealous Nihal. But then Bihter is also like the narrator in being out of her depth as the young wife of an older man in a grand mansion that used to have another mistress.

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #nihal #bihter #Madonna-Whore dichotomy #anna karenina #madame bovary #rebecca #aşk ı memnu asks #daphne du maurier #halit ziya uşaklıgil #asks #mademoiselle de courton #firdevs #peyker

[faintingheroine]

Was talking with @thingsiwishidlearnt about Turkish Westernization and I mentioned how Nihal’s brother goes to the first Western-style high school established by the Ottoman state.

This seems like it has symbolic significance but does it?

I am not sure.

Behlül is also a graduate of that high school (Galatasaray High School) and there is a reference to him having friends everywhere:

“These friendships, begun in a school-life composed of all strata, had increased after he left school, and had embodied for him faces to greet and hands to shake in all spheres of society.”

(Chapter 3)

“School-life composed of all strata” is a reference to Galatasaray High School being the first secular state school in Ottoman Empire that accepted boys from all religious backgrounds. This was incredibly controversial in 1868 when the school was first established.

I doubt that Halit Ziya who himself went to a Catholic Armenian high school to better learn French and was the only Turk there would care to criticize this, but the rather satirical nature of these passages describing Behlül makes me stop.

It also doesn’t help that we know nothing about Behlül’s family life and childhood beyond that he is the son of Adnan Bey’s brother, that he went to Galatasaray High School and that even his 14-year-old self left Mademoiselle de Courton cold. He is the third most prominent character in this novel whose inner thoughts we repeatedly see into, but we don’t know what first “corrupted” him.

Later Bülent goes to Galatasaray as well and grows a bit distant from Nihal and Mademoiselle de Courton’s influence. But I don’t think that he becomes “worse” necessarily. And the only friends he mentions have Muslim names, so there is no reference to the multi-ethnic nature of the school with Bülent.

Would Halit Ziya care to criticize the multi-ethnic nature of Galatasaray High School? I am not sure? As I mentioned he himself went to a Catholic Armenian high school because he found the Turkish high schools inadequate. He often conversed with his family in French which is a pomposity that is not often found in Turkey. Nihal has a French governess and unlike Behlül the governess is the most moral character in the novel. So it is not the “Frenchness” that corrupts. Is it the minorities? After all the book is critical of the earlier governesses of Nihal “who one day claimed that they were German and the next day were understood to be of the Sofia Jews” and “who tried to drown their deficient French, learned in convent orphanages or as seamstress’s apprentices, in the ornamentation of a fake accent”. Is Aşk-ı Memnu secretly a racist book? Maybe it is not the minorities but Beyoğlu that corrupts? But then the moral Mademoiselle de Courton also prays at a church in Beyoğlu. And what about the immorality of Firdevs who has no French reference to speak of beyond shopping at Beyoğlu?

Ultimately I don’t think that Aşk-ı Memnu criticizes any one thing. It gestures at some common points of criticism and seems to criticize some stuff but ultimately the lesson to be learned seems to be “some people suck because they suck” more than anything else.

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #behlül #mademoiselle de courton #religion