İnsanlığın yeniden keşfi: Le Guin’in “She Unnames Them” adlı eserinde dil, güç ve başkaldırı

Year 2021, Issue: Ö9, 229 - 237, 21.08.2021

Sultan Komut Bakınç

https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.981540

Abstract

Benliğimizin inşa sürecinde dilin oynadığı rol dilbilim, psikoloji, felsefe ve edebiyat da dâhil birçok alanda süregelen bir tartışma konusudur. Ursula K. Le Guin’in She Unnames Them (1985) adlı eseri ise, bir kadın anlatıcının Cennet Bahçesindeki hayvanları isimsizleştirerek dilin gücünü açığa çıkarttığı bir kısa hikâyedir. Le Guin hikâyedeki kadını adlandırmaz, zira hayvanlar ile birlikte, kadın da kendi ismini Âdem’e ve babasına geri vermiştir. İncil’deki Yaratılışa da imada bulunan hikâye, okuyuculara yeni bir yaratılış hikâyesi sunmaktadır. Bu yeni yaratılış hikâyesinde kadınlar edilgen, daha aşağı konumda ve boyunduruk altında tutulmamakta; aksine, dilin gücüne ve otorite konumuna meydan okunmaktadır. Kadın anlatıcı, gücün erkeklerin hâkimiyetinde olduğu ve öyle kalacağına dair ataerkil varsayıma karşı koymaktadır. Onun başkaldırısı, eşitsizliğin, tektipleştirmenin ve en önemlisi sınıfların olmadığı yeni bir hayatın yeşermesine öncülük etmektedir. Kadın anlatıcı benliğini yeniden keşfederek Âdem’i ve Cennet Bahçesini arkasında bırakıp yeni nesilleri de yanına alarak yeni bir çağ başlatmaktadır. Dolayısıyla kadın, gelecek nesilleri de kendi yanına almaktadır. Bu hikâye, yalnızca bir zamanlar Havva adındaki bir kadının benliğini yeniden keşfettiği bir hikâye değil; daha ziyade, insanlığın yeniden keşfedilme hikâyesidir.

Keywords

dil, güç, isimsizleştirme, benliğin yeniden keşfi

The reinvention of humanity: Language, power and rebellion in Le Guin’s “She Unnames Them”

Abstract

What role language plays in the process of construction of the Self is an area of debate in many fields including linguistics, psychology, philosophy and literature. She Unnames Them (1985) by Ursula K. Le Guin is a short story in which the power of language is manifested through the female protagonist’s unnaming of animals in the Garden of Eden. Le Guin does not name the woman in the story because along with the animals, she gives her name back to Adam and his father. As a Biblical allusion of Genesis, the story gives readers a fresh version of the creation story in which women do not hold a passive, inferior, and subordinate position, on the contrary, the power of language is challenged and so is the position of authority. The female protagonist challenges the patriarchal assumption that power is the dominion of men and will remain so. Her rebellion causes a new life without inequality, stereotyping and, most importantly, without classes, to emerge. Through the female protagonist’s self-reinvention, a new era begins seeing that she leaves Adam and the Garden of Eden, taking the future generations with her. This is not just a story of a self-reinvention of a woman who was once named Eve, rather this is the story of the reinvention of humanity.

Keywords

language, power, unnaming, patriarchy, self-reinvention

References

• Butler, J. (1997). Excitable Speech. A Politics of the Performative. London: Routledge.
• Cornell, M. D. (2005). Mother of All The Living: Reinterpretations of Eve in Contemporary Literature. Cross Currents, 54(4).
• Eaton, H. (2005) Introducing Ecofeminist Theologies. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2005. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/halictr/detail.action?docID=1749091. Created from halictr on 2021-07-09 09:55:46.
• Elliott, A. (2013). Reinvention. Taylor & Francis Group, ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/halictr/detail.action?docID=1114682. Created from halictr on 2021-01-05 03:24:22.
• Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge. ed. C. Gordon, Brighton: Harvester.
• Foucault, M. (1998). The History of Sexuality. Harmondsworth, Allen Lane.
• Galea, S. (2014). Chapter Nıne: Self-Writing, the Feminine, and the Educational Constitution of the Self. Counterpoints, 462, 139-153. Retrieved June 6, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/45178384
• Geyh, P, Leebron, F. G. and Andrew Levy, (1998). Postmodern American Fiction, A Norton Anthology. (1st Ed.), New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
• Hamblen, C. (1979). The Married Woman's Name: A Metaphor of Oppression. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 36(3), 248-256. Retrieved June 25, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42575418
• Khanna, L. (1991). Beyond Omelas: Utopia and Gender. Utopian Studies, 2(1/2), 48-58. Retrieved June 26, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20719025
• Laugesen, A. (2019). Changing ‘Man Made Language’: Sexist Language And Feminist Linguistic Activism In Australia. In Arrow M. & Woollacott A. (Eds.), Everyday Revolutions: Remaking Gender, Sexuality and Culture in 1970s Australia (pp. 241-260). Acton ACT, Australia: ANU Press. Retrieved June 26, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvq4c17c.16
• Le, Guin, U. K. (2016). Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, with a Journal of a Writer’s Week, Small Beer Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/halictr/detail.action?docID=5183071.
• Le Guin, U. K. (1985). “She Unnames Them” New Yorker. 1/21/85, Vol. 60, Issue 49, p.27-27. 1p.
• Le Guin, U. K. (1987). Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences. New York: ROC-Penguin.
• Melzow, C. (2012). Identification, Naming, and Rhetoric in "The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness and The Maine Woods". Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 19(2), 356-374. Retrieved June 20, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44087104
• New American Standard Bible (1995) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2&version=NASB1995
• Rashley, L. (2007). Revisioning Gender: Inventıng Women In Ursula K. Le Guın's Nonfıctıon. Biography, 30(1), 22-47. Retrieved May 16, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23540596
• Shiva, V. & Mies, M. (2014). Ecofeminism. ProQuest Ebook Central http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer; Created from halictr on 2021-07-09 08:31:10.
• Showalter, E. (1993). American Gynocriticism. American Literary History, 5(1), 111-128. Retrieved June 26, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/489763