CHRİSTİNA ROSSETTİ'NİN SPEAKING LIKENESSES “KONUŞAN SURETLER” ADLI ESERİNDE FANTASTİK BAŞKALAŞIMLAR VE GELENEKSEL CİNSİYET ROLLERİNİN TERS-DÜZ EDİLMESİ

Year 2017, Volume: 57 Issue: 2, 1503 - 1527, 01.01.2017

Merve Sarı

Abstract

Times Literary Supplement tarafından “alışılmışın dışında uygunsuz bir kitap” olarak nitelendirilen Christina Rossetti'nin Speaking Likenesses 1874, “Konuşan Suretler” adlı eseri, bir çerçeve hikaye tarafından iç içe örülmüş üç farklı hikayeden oluşmaktadır. Lewis Carroll'ın Alice Harikalar Diyarında ve Aynanın İçinden adlı kitaplarından ilham alan Rossetti, fantastik değişimlere uğrattığı çocuk kahramanlarına kendilerinin en az sevilen yönlerini göstermeyi amaç edinir. Bu bağlamda, özellikle ilk ve son hikayelerdeki karakterler, tuhaf bir şekilde biçimleri bozulmuş kendilerine benzeyen ikizlerinin kusur ve noksanlıklarıyla aslında kendileriyle yüzleşirler. Toplumdaki radikal değişimlerin, sonuç olarak Viktoryen Ortaçağ Dirilişi'ne sebep olduğu bir dönemde yazılmış olan bu eser, Rossetti'nin peri masallarına olan ilgisi açısından oldukça önemlidir. İlk bakışta hikayeler geleneksel toplumsal cinsiyet rollerini destekler görünse de çerçeve hikâye, hikâye anlatıcısı Teyze karakteriyle alay ederek bu savı yerle bir eder. Rossetti, Teyze karakteri aracılığıyla Viktorya toplumunda kadınlar ve erkekler için farklı işleyen çifte standartları hicveder. Ek olarak, bu hikayeler yoluyla Rossetti, Viktorya Dönemi'nde ortaya çıkan ve uyum sağlayabilenin zayıf olanı yok ederek var olmasını; yani erkeğin toplumda kadını yok ederek var olmasını, gerektiren sosyal Darwinism'ine olan ilgiyi eleştirerek dinsel ahlaki öğretileri savunur. Sonuç olarak, Speaking Likeness “Konuşan Suretler” adlı eserinde Rossetti, toplumun eril ve dişiler için “münasip” olarak nitelediği davranışları toplumun çifte standartları bağlamında eleştirir. Fantastik dönüşümler yoluyla kadınları, Viktorya toplumunun cinsel ve sosyo-ekonomik mağduriyetlerinden kurtarır.

Keywords

Christina Rossetti, Speaking Likenesses (“Konuşan Suretler”), Viktoryen Ortaçağ Dirilişi, Peri Masalları, Başkalaşım, Karnavalesk, Cinsiyet Eşitsizliği, Sosyal Darwinism

FANTASTIC METAMORPHOSES AND THE SUBVERSION OF TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES IN CHRISTINA ROSSETTI'S SPEAKING LIKENESSES

Abstract

Regarded as “a peculiarly revolting book” by the Times Literary Supplement, Christina Rossetti's Speaking Likenesses 1874 consists of three different stories that are woven together as one through a frame story. Inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and its sequence, Through the Looking Glass, in these stories, Rossetti aims at revealing the least attractive side of each of its child-characters through fantastic transformations. To this end, the characters, particularly in the rst and the last stories, encounter their strangely disgured doppelgangers who reect the aws and short-comings of their originals. Written in an age when radical transformations were taking place within the society which accordingly triggered the rise of Victorian Medieval Revival, Rossetti's interest in fairy tales is quite signicant. Although at rst glance the stories seem to reaf rm conventional gender roles, the frame story denies such a claim through the mockery of the Aunt; the story-teller. Rossetti, through the Aunt satirises the double standards that are at work for men and women in the Victorian society. Additionally, through the stories, Rossetti criticises Victorian interest in social Darwinism which necessitates that the ttest survives at the expense of the weakest; that is men at the expense of women, and upholds religious moral codes. To conclude, in Speaking Likenesses, Rossetti satirises the double standards of the society in terms of their expectations regarding “proper” masculine and feminine conduct. By way of her employment of the fantastic metamorphoses, she liberates women from their sexual as well as socio-economic victimisation in the Victorian society.

Keywords

Christina Rossetti, Speaking Likenesses, Victorian Medieval Revival, Fairy Tales, Metamorphosis, Carnivalesque, Gender Inequality, Social Darwinism

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