Lan McEwan'ın Amsterdam Romanında Siyasal Bilinçdışı: Soğuk Savaş Sonrası Paradigma Değişimi ve Geç Kapitalist Pazar Çağında Ahlak

Year 2024, Issue: 40, 880 - 896, 25.06.2024

Cihan Yazgı

https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.1502248

Abstract

Amsterdam, hem yazarın önceki romanlarından ve kısa öykülerinden farklı oluşu hem de ona Booker Ödülü başarısını getirmesi sebepleriyle, Ian McEwan’ın yazarlık kariyerindeki yeni bir aşamanın başlangıcını işaret etmektedir. Her ne kadar ilk eleştirmenler bu romanı yazarın daha ciddi çalışmalarından bir sapış olarak tanımlasa da McEwan bu görüşleri ciddiyetle reddetmiş ve o döneme kadar yazmış olduğu romanlarından farkını kabul ederek yine de bunun romanın önemini azaltmadığını söylemiştir. Bu makale McEwan ile aynı görüşü benimsemektedir; Amsterdam gerçekten de Soğuk Savaş sonrası paradigma değişimini ve 1990’larda yaşanan küresel politikadaki eski iktidar konumlarını zorlayan iki kutuplu dünya düzeninden tek kutuplu dünya düzenine geçişi fevkalade bir şekilde yansıtan ve yeniden üreten önemli bir romandır. McEwan’ın romanı bu sosyo-politik dönüşümü yansıtır ve anlatısı içerisinde yarattığı ‘ahlaki yükümlülük mü yoksa kişisel çıkar mı’ gerilimi üzerinden, ahlaki yükümlülüğün sol siyasetle, kişisel çıkarın ise sağ siyasetle örtüştüğü sembolik bir yaklaşımla güç, otorite ve yönlendirme krizlerini ele alır. Bu makale ayrıca romanın yalnızca tarihsel-siyasi bağlamı yansıtıp yeniden üretmediğini, aynı zamanda, metinlerin siyasal bilinçdışını ortaya çıkarmayı vadeden Fredric Jameson’un anlamsal zenginleştirme yöntemi kullanılarak yorumlandığında, o tarihsel-siyasi bağlama sembolik bir çözüm sağladığını da ileri sürmektedir. En nihayetinde McEwan’ın Amsterdam’ı, bu köklü değişim döneminde güç, otorite ve yönlendirme krizlerini ele almaya çalışan sembolik bir eyleme dönüşür.

Keywords

siyasal bilinçdışı, ahlak, Fredric Jameson, Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

The Political Unconscious in Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam: The Post-Cold War Paradigm Shift and Morality in the Era of the Late Capitalist Market

Abstract

Amsterdam opens a new phase in Ian McEwan’s writing career both for its differences from his earlier novels and short stories and for its Booker Prize success. Although the novel’s early critics designate the novel as a lightweight diversion from McEwan’s more serious subject matter, he earnestly dismisses these views and argues that while Amsterdam indeed differs from his novels written up to that point, this does not minimise the novel’s significance. This article takes up McEwan’s side in this debate in that Amsterdam is indeed a significant novel which reflects and reproduces perfectly well a post-Cold War paradigm shift in the world from a bipolar to a unipolar socio-political global order with which the previous power positions are forced, in the 1990s, to transform. McEwan’s novel reflects this socio-political transformation, and it symbolically addresses the crises of power, authority, and direction by way of creating a tension, in its narrative, between moral obligation and self-interest, where moral duty aligns with left-wing politics and self-interest with right-wing politics. This article further argues that the novel does not only reflect and reproduce that historical-political context but also, when it is interpreted using Fredric Jameson’s interpretative model for exploring texts’ political unconscious, serves as a symbolic resolution of its given historical-political moment.

Keywords

political unconscious, morality, Fredric Jameson, Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

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