The Time Regulation Institute as a Satirical Allegory

Year 2018, Volume: 19 Issue: 43 SITKI KOÇMAN'ın Anısına Armağan, 37 - 59, 28.12.2018

Hilal Kaya

Abstract

This paper focuses on Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s The Time Regulation Institute (1961) as a modern satirical allegory in order to foreground the novel’s critical attitude to the mentality that equates modernization with Westernization. The paper aims to pinpoint that in The Time Regulation Institute Tanpınar intends to shed light on the issue of Turkey’s problematic engagement with modernity and modernization. Unlike A Mind at Peace (Huzur 1949), Tanpınar’s narration in The Time Regulation Institute is not structured around argumentative dialogues between the characters. Rather, the latter depicts Turkey in transformation as a consequence of the project of modernization; more precisely, this study aims to demonstrate that a version of Turkey before, during and after the transformation is humorously displayed. This study aims to contribute not only to the scholarship on Tanpınar’s fiction whose fictional works have rarely been examined as a satirical-allegory but also to the modernity studies.

Keywords

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, The Time Regulation Institute, Modernity nnd Modernization Studies, Satirical Allegory

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