Sınıf Farkı, Özel Hayat ve Puşkin'in Maça Kızı Hikâyesinin Çelişkili Ahlaki Bahisleri

Year 2019, Issue: 20, 41 - 66, 01.10.2019

Ahmet Süner

Abstract

Gerçek ve fantazi, korku ve ironinin ustaca bir karışımı olan Puşkin’in Gotik hikâyesi, Maça Kızı, kahramanı Germann’ın hikâyeye ait ahlaki evrenin kurallarını çiğnediği için cezalandırıldığı bir meseldir. Bu ahlaki evreni anlamak için hikâyenin özellikle sınıf farkı ve özel hayat meselelerini nasıl işlediğini incelemek gerekir. Böyle bakıldığında hikâyenin özel hayatı ihlal ederek sınıf farkını ortadan kaldırmanın dehşetine işaret ettiği görülebilir. Bu makale, özellikle Tomsky’nin anekdotu ve Lizaveta’nın evin sırlarını ifşa edişi üzerine odaklanarak, hikâyenin karakterlerin özel hayatlarını açığa çıkardığı ikircikli yolları araştırır. Aynı zamanda hikâyenin kadın karakteri Lizaveta’nın Germann'den farklı bir bahisle ilgilendiğini ve bu bahisle birlikte, Pushkin'in onu acınası bir karakter olarak betimlemesine rağmen, gerçek bir kahramana ve varoluşsal bir kumarcıya dönüştüğünü iddia eder.

Keywords

Puşkin, Maça Kızı, sınıf farkı, özel hayat, gotik edebiyat.

Class Difference and the Right to Privacy: The Ambiguous Moral Bets of Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades

Abstract

An ingenious blend of fear and irony, realism and fantasy, Pushkin’s Gothic novella, The Queen of Spades, is a moral tale in which its protagonist-villain, Germann, is punished for violating the norms of the moral universe peculiar to the story. To understand this universe, it is necessary to take into account the intricate ways in which the story thematizes and represents two particular issues: class difference and privacy. Indeed, the story may be read as a commentary on the horrors of attempting to dispense with a class difference by way of violating private life. This article explores the ambiguous ways in which the story reveals the private life of its characters, focusing particularly on Tomsky’s curious anecdote and Lizaveta’s revelation of the secrets of the house. It also shows that Lizaveta is invested in a different kind of bet than that of Germann, which turns her into a veritable heroine and an existential gambler despite the pathetic description that Pushkin otherwise gives of her.

Keywords

Pushkin, Queen of Spades, class difference, private life, gothic literature.

References

• Barker, Adele. Pushkin’s Queen of Spades: A Displaced Mother Figure. American Imago 41 (2): 201-209. 1984.
• Clayton, J. Douglas. The Queen of Spades: A Seriously Intended Joke. Pushkin Review 12-13: 1-15. 2009-2010.
• Cornwall, Neil. Pushkin’s the Queen of Spades (Critical Studies in Russian Literature). Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1998.
• Cornwell, Neil. “You’ve heard of the Count Saint-Germain…”–In Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades” and Far Beyond. New Zealand Slavonic Journal: Festschrift in Honor of Arnold McMillin: 49-66. 2002.
• Davydov, Sergei. The Ace in The Queen of Spades. Slavic Review 58(2): 309-328. 1999.
• Debreczeny, Paul. In Bethea, David M. (Ed) Wisconsin Center for Push- kin Studies: Pushkin Handbook. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 2006. Pp. 241-265, pp. 247-249
• Gregg, Richard. Germann the Confessor and the Stony, Seated Coun- tess: The Moral Subtext of Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades.” The Slavonic East European Review 78 (4): 612-624. 2000.
• Grenier, Svetlana. “Everyone knew her” or did they? Rereading Push- kin’s Lizaveta Ivanovna. Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadien- ne des Slavistes 38 (1/2): 93-107, 1996.
• Leighton, Lauren G. Gematria in The Queen of Spades. The Slavic and East European Journal 21(4): 455-469. 1977.
• Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich. Sobranie Sochinenij Tom Pjatyj: Romany, Povesti. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’ctvo, 1960.
• Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich. The Queen of Spades. Edmonds, Rose- mary (Tr.) London: Penguin Classics, 2004.
• Rosen, Nathan. Up the Down Staircase in The Queen of Spades. The Slavic and European Journal 46 (4): 711-726. 2002.
• Rosen, Nathan. The Magic Cards in The Queen of Spades. The Slavic and East European Journal 19(3): 255-275, 1975.
• Rosenshield, Gary. Gambling and Passion: Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades” and Dostoyevsky’s “The Gambler.” The Slavic and East European Journal 55(2): 205-228. 2011.
• Rosenshield, Gary. Freud, Lacan, and the Romantic Psychoanalysis: Three Psychoanalytic Approaches to Madness in Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades. The Slavic and East European Journal 40 (1): 1-26. 1996.
• Schwartz, Murray M. and Albert Schwartz. The Queen of Spades: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. Texas Studies in Literature and Lan- guage 17 (Special Issue): 275-288. 1975.
• Shrayer, Maxim D. Rethinking Romantic Irony: Pushkin, Byron, Schlegel and the Queen of Spades, The Slavic and East European Journal 36 (4): 397-414. 1992.
• Simpson, Mark S. The Russian Gothic Novel and its British Antece- dents. Columbus: Slavica Publishers, 1986.
• Solodkaia, Daria. The Mystery of Germann’s Failure in The Queen of Spades: Cracking Pushkin’s Personal Code. Pushkin Review 11: 61- 79. 2008.
• Terras, Victor. A History of Russian Literature. New Haven: Yale Uni- versity Press, 1994.