FICTION OR PRECONCEPTION: THE ‘APE’ ALLEGORY IN ROSE MACAULAY’S THE TOWERS OF TREBIZOND

Year 2015, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 46 - 51, 01.12.2015

Fatih Öztürk

Abstract

In The Towers of
Trebizond, in Chapter 22, Rose Macaulay begins to train an ape named
Suliman which she bought before leaving Turkey. Though she criticizes the
mission activities carried out by the Church, she intends to implement mission
on this ape. With the supposition that it originally belonged to mountains and
has not climbed up the path of civilization, she organizes a ‘civilization’
course for it, aiming to ultimately have an Anglican, emancipated and civilized
‘human being’. In this respect, it could be said that Macaulay’s perspective of
Turks and their need to get civilized are represented with the allegorical ape.
When the writer’s overall attitude towards the people living in Turkey is taken
into account, it could be suggested that she intentionally created such a
fictitious ape character to denote an uncivilized Turkish person. It is known
that Rose Macaulay actually visited Turkey and Cyprus in 1950s, and shared her
impressions in her letters to her sister. In these letters, she regards the
Turks as ‘the most inferior’ people of the world in terms of intellectual
capacity, which in part explicates why she chose an ape to train both
spiritually and culturally. Therefore, in this study, whether the ape character
in this novel is a product of fiction or preconception will be examined, mainly
referring to Macaulay’s own writings.   

Keywords

: Rose Macaulay, Ape Allegory, The Towers of Trebizond, Prejudice

References

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• 2. Babington-Smith, Constance (ed.) (1964). Rose Macaulay: Letters to a Sister. The Murray Printing Company: New York.
• 3. Babington-Smith, Constance (ed.) (1972). Rose Macaulay, Collins: London.
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• 5. Emery, Jane (1991). Rose Macaulay: A Writer’s Life, John Murray: London.
• 6. Macaulay, Rose (1967). The Towers of Trebizond. Fontana Books: London.
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