Abstract
Heinrich Böll, one of the pioneers of post-war German literature, writes about the depression in Germany after the war in his works. He criticizes the points that many writers hesitate to touch in his works without hesitation. In the novel "Clown", we have the opportunity to see all the bigotry of the society through a clown who is ostracized by the society and hidden behind his mask. In the novel II. Although the romance and sectarian conflicts of the character, who became estranged from the society after World War II, seem to be dealt with, in fact, the distorted moral understanding of people who describe themselves as religious is revealed. Through the life of a clown, the reader is prompted to think about many issues (German society at that time, war, the process of rebuilding society, religion, etc.). With this novel, the reader gets the opportunity to see clearly that the main criticism is not made on the facts that were destroyed at first glance, when he delves into them. In this novel, Böll ironically examines those who go wherever the wind blows, the transformation of Nazis who were not peaceful before the war into peaceful people after the war, political and religious ideologies and bourgeois morality. In this study, Heinrich Böll's novel "The Clown" will be discussed in the axis of alienation. In this novel, the way in which the phenomenon of alienation is handled, the attitudes of the heroes towards this phenomenon and their results will be tried to be revealed through the examples given from the work. Heinrich Böll, who grew up with the German culture, processes his experiences and exposures (war, migration, financial difficulties, hardship, etc.) in his works.