Süreksiz Tarih ve Büyülü Gerçekçilik: Kazuo Ishiguro’nun Gömülü Dev Adlı Romanının Foucaultcu Bir Okuması

Yıl 2021, , 525 - 546, 06.12.2021

Baysar Tanıyan

https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2021-868869

Öz

Michel Foucault’nun tarihe arkeolojik yaklaşımı, nihayetinde mükemmel bir topluma ulaşmayı öngören Hegelci evrimsel ve ilerici tarih anlayışına itiraz eder. Foucault, tarihin, neden-sonuç ilişkisi içinde doğrusal, diyalektik bir çizgi izlediği düşüncesinde değildir. Her tarihsel dönemin kendine özgü hakikat koşulları vardır ve de bu dönemler arasında o toplum içerisindeki iktidar ilişkileri tarafından belirlenen kırılmalar, kopmalar ve süreksizlikler vardır. Bu tarihsel dönüşümler, belirli bir dönemde söylemsel pratikler tarafından üretilen mevcut bilgi dizisi olarak tanımlanan epistemenin değişiminin sonucu olarak ortaya çıkar. Bu bağlam içerisinde, makale Nobel ödüllü İngiliz yazar Kazuo Ishiguro’nun büyülü gerçekçi romanı Gömülü Dev’deki (2015) tarihsel süreksizlikleri incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Romanda Kazuo Ishiguro, büyülü gerçekçilik türünün ona sunduğu imkanlardan ve ortaçağ romanslarından etkili bir şekilde faydalanarak Anglo-Sakson döneminin yarı mitolojik bir tarihi versiyonunu yaratır. Ishiguro’nun tarih versiyonunda, Kral Arthur’un isteğiyle Merlin bir ejderhaya büyü yapar. Bu büyünün ortaya çıkardığı etkiyle hem Britonlar hem de Saksonlar, tarihsel süreksizliklere neden olan hafıza kaybına uğrarlar. Dahası, Merlin tarafından yapılan bu büyü, bu iki halkı ebedi şimdiye ve buradaya hapsederken, Kral Arthur’a ise mutlak ve sorgulanamayan bir siyasal iktidar inşa etme olanağı sunar. Çalışma, bu süreksizliklere odaklanarak metnin Foucaultcu bir okumasını sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu çalışma aynı zamanda Michel Foucault’nun süreksiz tarihi ile büyülü gerçekçilik türü arasında kuramsal bir bağ kurarak Ishiguro’nun metninin daha iyi anlaşılmasını sağlayacaktır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Kazuo Ishiguro, Gömülü Dev, büyülü gerçekçilik, tarih, süreksizlik

Destekleyen Kurum

yok

Proje Numarası

yok

Teşekkür

yok

Discontinuous History and Magical Realism:A Foucauldian Reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant

Öz

Michel Foucault’s archaeological approach to history contests Hegelian understanding of evolutionary and progressive history which presupposes an ultimate arrival at a perfect form of society. For Foucault, history does not follow a linear, dialectical line within a cause-and-effect relationship. Each historical period has its own conditions of truth and between these periods, there are breaks, twists, ruptures and discontinuities determined by power relations in that society. These historical transformations occur following a change in épistèmé which connotes to the available set of knowledge produced by discursive practices in a particular period. Within this context, this study aims to analyse historical discontinuities in Kazuo Ishiguro’s magical realist novel, The Buried Giant (2015). In the novel, by benefiting from generic potentials of magical realism, and effectively exploiting the medieval romance, Ishiguro creates a quasi-mythological historical account of the Anglo-Saxon period. In his version, King Arthur makes Merlin perform a spell on a dragon. Due to the spell, the Britons and the Saxons suffer memory loss which causes historical discontinuities. Moreover, while the spell confines the people into a perpetual here and now, it grants Arthur absolute political power. The study will focus on these discontinuities and present a Foucauldian reading of the text. The study will also theoretically connect Foucault’s discontinuous history with magical realism, which may broaden our understanding of Ishiguro’s text.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant, magical realism, history, discontinuity

Proje Numarası

yok

Kaynakça

• Bhabha, H. (1990). Introduction: narrating the nation. In Homi Bhabha (Ed.), Nation and Narration (pp. 1-7). London: Routledge. google scholar
• Charlwood, C. (2018). National identities, personal crises: Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro’s the buried giant. Open CulturalStudies, 2, 25-38. https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2018-0004 google scholar
• D’haen, T. L. (1997). Postmodernisms: From fantastic to magic realist. In H. Bertens & D. Fokkema (Eds.) International postmodernism: Theory and literary practice (pp. 283-293). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. google scholar
• Esen, Ö. (2018). pp. 7-20; Recovering memories and reconstructing realities: Magical realism and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The buried giant. (Master’s thesis, Pamukkale University). Retrieved from http://acikerisim.pau.edu.tr/xmlui/ bitstream/handle/11499/27617/%C3%96zg%C3%BCr%20Esen.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y google scholar
• Faris, W. B. (2004). Ordinary enchanments: Magical realism and the remystification of narrative. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. google scholar
• Foucault, M. (1980). Power / knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings: 1972-1977. (C. Gordon, Ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. google scholar
• ------. (2001). Power: The essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984. (Vol. 3). (R. Hurley & J. D. Faubion & P. Rabinow, Eds.). New York: The New Press. google scholar
• ------. (2002). Archaeology of knowledge. (A. Sheridan, Trans.) London & New York: Routledge. google scholar
• Frye, N. (2000). Anatomy of criticism: Four essays. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press. google scholar
• Gordon, C. (2001). Introduction. In R. Hurley & J. D. Faubion & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Power (The essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984 (pp. xi-xli). New York: The New Press. google scholar
• Hart, S. M. (2005). Introduction: Globalization of Magical Realism: New Politics of Aesthetics. In S. M. Hart & W. Ouyang (Eds.), A companion to magical realism (pp. 1-12). Woodbridge: Tamesis. google scholar
• Hutcheon, L. (1995). A poetics of postmodernism. London: Routledge. google scholar
• Ishiguro, K. (2015). The buried giant. London: Faber. google scholar
• ------. (2016, July 1). Kazuo Ishiguro on his fears for Britain after Brexit. Financial Times. Retrieved from https:// www.ft.com/content/7877a0a6-3e11-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a google scholar
• ------. (2017). Nobel lecture (pdf). Retrieved from https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/ishiguro-lecture_en-3.pdf google scholar
• Lampert-Weissig, L. (2010). Medieval literature and postcolonial studies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. google scholar
• Lynch, A. (2017). Post-colonial studies. In L. Tether and J. McFadyen (Eds.), Handbook of Arthurian romance: King Arthur’s court in medieval European literature (pp. 307-320). Berlin: De Gruyter. google scholar
• Lupack, A. (2015). [Review of the buried giant]. Arthuriana, 25(3), 118-120. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ stable/24643534 google scholar
• Mills, S. (2003) Michel Foucault. London & New York: Routledge. google scholar
• Munslow, A. (2006) Deconstructing history. 2nd Ed. London & New York: Routledge. google scholar
• Pearsall, D. (2005). Arthurian romance: A short introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. google scholar
• Poster, M. (1984). Foucault, Marxism and history: Mode of production versus mode of information. Oxford: Polity Press. google scholar
• Shaw D. L. (2005). The presence of myth in Borges, Carpentier, Asturias, Rulfo and Garca Marquez. In S. M. Hart & W. Ouyang (Eds.), A companion to magical realism (pp. 46-54). Woodbridge: Tamesis. google scholar
• Slemon, S. (1988). Magic realism as post-colonial discourse. Canadian Literature, 116, 9-24. Retrieved from https://canlit.ca/full-issue/?issue=116 google scholar
• Sönmez Demir, Y. (2020) Kazuo Ishiguro’s postmodern hypertexts: Generic reconfigurations in the Remains of the day, when we were orphans, and the buried giant. (Doctoral dissertation, Middle East Technical University). Retrieved from http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12625819/index.pdf google scholar
• Teo, Y. (2014). Kazuo Ishiguro and memory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
• Tulving, E. (1972). Episodic and semantic memory. In E. Tulving & W. Donaldson (Eds.), Organization of memory (pp. 381-403). New York: Academic. google scholar
• ------. (1989). Memory: Performance, knowledge, and experience. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 1:1, 3-26. dx.doi.org/10.1080/09541448908403069 google scholar
• Tutan, D. E. (2016). A hybrid discourse: From Latin American magic realism to the British postcolonial postmodern novel. Selçuk University The Journal of Institute of Social Sciences, 36, 38-50. Retrieved from http://dergisosyalbil.selcuk.edu.tr/susbed/article/view/1285/1079 google scholar
• Vernon, M., & Miller, M.A. (2018). Navigating wonder: The medieval geographies of Kazuo Ishiguro’s the buried giant. Arthuriana 28(4), 68-89. doi:10.1353/art.2018.0036. google scholar
• Zamora L. P. and W. B. Faris. (1995). Introduction. In L. P. Zamora & W. B. Faris (Eds.), Magical realism: Theory, history, community (pp. 1-11). Durham & London: Duke University Press. google scholar