Kurt Vonnegut’in Happy Birthday, Wanda June Oyununun İlham Kaynakları: Odise Destanı ve Ernest Hemingway

Abstract

Happy Birthday, Wanda June Amerikalı yazar Kurt Vonnegut'ın kaleme aldığı az sayıdaki oyunlarından biridir. Bizzat yazarın da itiraf ettiği gibi, Homeros'un Odise yapıtının oyunun ilham kaynağı olduğu bilinmektedir. Başta kahraman olmak üzere karakterleri oluşturmada Ernest Hemingway'in etkisi yine yazar tarafından açıkça ifade edilen diğer bir gerçekliktir. Bu iki noktayı bağımsız çalışma alanı olarak ele alan bu makalede Vonegut’ın, Odise’nin yirmi yıl sonra eve dönüşünü ve Ernest Hemingway'in, gözünü kırpmadan çok sayıda adam öldüren ve kadınlara karşı maço tavır takınan savaş kahramanlarını resmetmesini alaya alışına dikkat çekilmektedir. Bu makale, satirik komedi Happy Birthday, Wanda June oyununda yazarın ana kahramanı temel alarak sürekli Odise’ye ve Ernest Hemingway’e gönderide bulunmasını metinler arasılık açısından incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Keywords

• Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, Metinler arasılık, Odise, Happy Birthday, WandaJune.

The Sources of Inspiration for Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut: Odyssey and Ernest Hemıngway

Abstract

Happy Birthday, Wanda June is one of the few plays the American author Kurt Vonnegut tried his hand at. It is very well-known that, as the writer himself openly confesses, Homer’s Odyssey is the source of inspiration for the play. The influence of Ernest Hemingway in terms of forming characters, notably the hero, is another fact revealed by the author as well. In this paper taking these two points as discrete items of focus, the attention is drawn to Vonegut's parodying Odysseus’ homecoming after some twenty years and Hemingway's portrayal of war heroes who could kill many people pitilessly and have macho attitudes towards women. This paper seeks to analyze the writer’s ongoing reference to Odysseus and Ernest Hemingway on the basis of the main character in terms of intertextuality in the satiric comedy Happy Birthday, Wanda June.

Keywords

• Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, Intertextuality, Odyssey, Happy Birthday, Wanda June.

References

1. Barber, L. (2006). “I Smoke Therefore I am.” London: Guardian Observer.http://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/feb/05/features.review2, 03. 03.2014.
2. Barthes, R. (1988). “The Death of the Author”, K. M. Newton (Ed.). Twentieth-Century Literary Theory. Macmillan Education, London
3. Broer, L. R. (2001). “Vonnegut’s Goodbye: Kurt Senior, Hemingway, and Kilgore Trout.” Kevin A. Boon (Ed). At Millennium’s End: New Essays on the Work of Kurt Vonnegut, Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 65-90.
4. Gussow, M. (1999). “Vonnegut is Having Fun Doing a Play.” William Rodney Allen (Ed.). Conversations with Vonnegut. University Press of Mississippi, pp. 23-25.
5. Marshall, J. (2008). “Audience Guide”, The American Century Theater. (http://www.americancentury. org/agwanda.pdf, 25. Dec. 2013).
6. Rudin, S. (1971). “Theatre Chronicle: Fall 1970”, the Massachusetts Review, (12): (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25088094?uid=2&uid=4&sid=2 1104898261357, 15. Feb. 2014). pp. 150-161.
7. Smith, D. (2007). “Kurt Vonnegut, Novelist Who Caught the Imagination of his Age, is Dead at 84”, 13 April 2007, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/books/11cndvonnegut.html?page wanted =1&_r=2, 15.Feb.2014).
8. Tallmer, J. (2004). “Vonnegut’s War Play Restaged”, The Villager, (73): 50.,14-20 50/vonnegutswarplay.html, 25.Feb.2014). 2004.

9. (http://thevillager.com/villager
10. Trubek, A. (2011). A Skeptic’s Guide to the Writer’s Houses, University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 67-88.
11. Vonnegut, K. (1965). God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Dell Publishing, New York.
12. Vonnegut, K. (1975). Happy Birthday, Wanda June, Grafton Books, London.
13. Vonnegut, K. (2005). A Man Without a Country, Seven Stories Press, New York.