Representations of Intellectuals in Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975): An Existentialist View

Yıl 2021, Cilt: 19 Sayı: 3, 220 - 233, 24.09.2021

İbrahim Katip , Aylin Atilla

https://doi.org/10.18026/cbayarsos.958427

Öz

This study analyzes the characters of David Lodge’s novel, Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses in the light of the philosophy of Existentialism. As Sartre has argued, the existence of a person comes before his essence. A person interprets this existence through external factors. Stripped of these factors, his/her existence constitutes his essence. Yet, the way of dealing with the external factors like social roles constitute his/her real essence. Hence, when stuck between these two essences, a person is likely to experience existential crisis. The characters who reflect these crises mostly appear in the novels written after 1950. With this study, the existential crises of the protagonists, their quests for identity and purpose as intellectuals are analyzed, and the novel, which was generally analyzed in terms of its parodical elements formerly, is reread with a different view. This analysis also sheds light on the situation of today’s academic world.

Anahtar Kelimeler

The Campus Novel, Existentialism, Intellectuality, David Lodge

Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975) Romanında Entelektüellerin Temsilleri: Varoluşçu Bir Bakış

Öz

Bu çalışmada Varoluşçu felsefenin ilkeleri kullanılarak David Lodge’ın Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses eseri üzerinde metin ve karakter analizi yapılmıştır. Fransız filozof Jean Paul Sartre’ın belirttiği üzere bir insanın varoluşu onun özünden önce gelir. İnsan bu varoluşunu, toplumdaki yerini ve işlevini dış etmenler üzerinden anlamlandırır. Sartre’a göre, bu etmenler olmaksızın bireyin varoluşu onun özünü oluşturur. Toplumsal roller, edinimler ve yerleşik davranış kalıpları gibi dışa bağlı etkenlere karşı bireyin tepkisi ve izlediği yol ise birey için gerçek özü oluşturur. Bu bağlamda, bireyin öz ve gerçek öz arasında sıkışması varoluşsal krizlere yol açabilir. Özellikle 1950 sonrası yazılan romanlarda, bireyin varoluşsal bunalımlarını farklı şekillerde yansıtan karakterlere sıkça rastlanmaktadır. Bu çalışma ile baş karakterlerin varoluşsal bunalımları, birer entelektüel olarak kimlik, anlam ve amaç arayışları incelenmekte ve daha önceleri genelde parodi unsurları üzerinden incelenen bu eser farklı bir pencereden okunmaktadır. Kurgusal düzlemde yapılan bu inceleme günümüz akademik dünyasının mevcut durumuna da ışık tutmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Kampüs romanı, Varoluşçuluk, Entelektüellik, David Lodge

Kaynakça

• Anténe, P. (2015) Campus novel variations: A comparative study of an Anglo- American genre. (Doctoral dissertation, Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic). Retrieved from https://theses.cz/id/6wpr47/Dissertation_Antne.pdf
• Falk, W. W. and S. Molloy (1985). Changing places revisited: The ‘cosmopolitan motif’ brought to life. Teaching Sociology, 12(4), 379-395.
• Flynn, T. (2006). Existentialism: A very short introduction. NYC, NY: Oxford UP.
• Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972- 1977. Colin Gordon (Ed.), (Colin Gordon, et al. Trans.). NYC, NY: Pantheon.
• Friji, N. (2019). The cultural revolution in David Lodge’s changing places. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies, 3(2), 22-36. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol3no2.3.
• Gramsci, A. (1992). The prison notebooks: Selections (Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Trans.). NYC, NY: International Publishers. (Original work published 1947)
• Lodge, D. (1978). Changing places: A tale of two campuses. London, UK: Penguin. (Original work published 1975)
• Lodge, D. (1996). Fact and fiction in the novel: An author’s note, The Practice of Writing (pp. 20-39) London, UK: Penguin.
• Martin, B. A. (2000). David Lodge’s changing places: The paradoxes of a liberal metahctionist. EPOS, 16, 293-302.
• Perkin, J. R. (2008). The pilgrimages of David Lodge. Christianity and Literature, 57(3), 419-442.
• Said, E. (1996). Representations of the Intellectual. NYC, NY: Vintage. (Original work published 1994)
• Sartre, J. P. (1965). Essays in Existentialism. Wade Baskin (Ed.). Secaucus, NJ: The Citadel Press.
• Sartre, J. P. (1978). Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology (Hazel E. Barnes, Trans.). NYC, NY: Pocket Books. (Original work published 1943)
• Sartre, J. P. (1988). What is Literature? And Other Essays. (Bernard Frechtman, Trans.).Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. (Original work published 1948)
• Shattock, M. (1984). British higher education under pressure: Politics, budgets and demography and the acceleration of ideas for change. European Journal of Education, 19(2), 201-216.
• Shelley, M. (1994). Frankenstein. London, UK: Penguin. (Original work published 1818)
• Stevens, P. (2002). Pretending to be real: Stephen Greenblatt and the legacy of popular existentialism. New Literary History, 33(3), 491-519.
• Wrathall, M. A. and H. L., Dreyfus (2006). A brief introduction to phenomenology and existentialism. In Wrathall, M. A. and H. L., Dreyfus (Eds.), A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism (pp. 1-7). Malden, MA: Blackwell.