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Yıkım Sonrası Yazını: “Diary of an Interesting Year” da Çevresel Çöküş ve Kadın Sesi

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 10 Sayı: 3, 1688 - 1701, 28.12.2025
https://doi.org/10.29110/soylemdergi.1775251

Öz

Post-apokaliptik kurgu, çağdaş edebiyat çalışmalarında belirgin bir tür olarak ortaya çıkmış; çevresel yıkım, toplumsal çöküş, temel kaynakların kıtlığı ve aşırı koşullar altında meydana gelen karmaşık etik ikilemler gibi kültürel kaygıları sıklıkla yansıtmaktadır. Bu noktada ekofeminist kuram, çevresel yıkım ile ataerkil baskı arasındaki karşılıklı ilişkilere vurgu yaparak verimli bir bakış açısı sunmaktadır. Helen Simpson’ın “Diary of an Interesting Year” (2009) adlı kısa öyküsü, bu kesişimsel perspektifi örneklendirmekte; çevresel çöküş, hastalık ve şiddetle harap olmuş bir dünyada hayatta kalmaya çalışan isimsiz bir kadın anlatıcının sesini merkeze taşımaktadır. Kısa ve ardışık günlük kayıtları biçiminde kaleme alınan anlatı, kadın bedenini ekolojik yıkım ile ataerkil denetimin kesiştiği merkezi bir mekân olarak konumlandırmakta; cinsel şiddet, üreme adaletsizliği ve kadın seslerinin susturulması gibi meseleleri öne çıkararak kıyamet anlatılarının geleneksel erkek-merkezli temsillerine meydan okumaktadır. Bu bağlamda, söz konusu çalışma, Simpson’ın öyküsünün kadın bedenini yalnızca çevresel kıtlığın mağduru olarak değil, aynı zamanda üreme denetimi ve toplumsal şiddetin yaşandığı bir mücadele alanı olarak tasvir ederek, çevresel ve ataerkil çöküşün ekofeminist düğümünü nasıl görünür kıldığını incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Kaynakça

  • Alaimo, Stacy (2010). Bodily natures: Science, environment, and the material self. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  • Benkert, Bethany (2018). “Hope for change in the post-apocalypse: Gender roles in the last of us”. Digital Literature Review 5, 39-54.
  • Berger, James (1999). After the end: Representations of post-apocalypse. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Bozkurt, Kadriye (2023). “Güzellik miti bağlamında George Bernard Shaw’un Pygmalion oyunu”. In E. Kaçmaz & T. Baykara (Eds.), Kadının edebi temsilleri: Kadının ederi mi, değeri mi? (pp. 171–189). İzmir: Günce Publishing.
  • Cixous, Hélène (1976). “The laugh of the Medusa”. Signs 1(4), 875–893. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173239?seq=1.
  • Crosara, Davide and Gianluca Cinelli (2022). “Between fiction and history: Telling the plague in Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year and Alessandro Manzoni’s Storia della colonna infame”. Interface: Journal of European Literature, History and Theory 19, 93-128. https://doi.org/10.6667/interface.19.2022.186.
  • D’Eaubonne, Françoise (1974). Le féminisme ou la mort. Paris: Pierre Horay
  • Gaard, Greta (2011). “Ecofeminism revisited: Rejecting essentialism and re-placing species in a material feminist environmentalism”. Feminist Formations 23(2), 26-53. https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2011.0017.
  • Hicks, Heather J. (2016). The post-apocalyptic novel in the twenty-first century: Modernity beyond salvage. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Kaplan, E. Ann (1983). Women and film: Both sides of the camera. London: Routledge.
  • Lowenstein, Marc (2013). “Surviving the apocalypse: The role of women in dystopian narratives”. Bungaku kenkyu (Studies in literature) 110, 45-70. https://doi.org/10.15017/26226.
  • Mellor, Mary (1997). Feminism and ecology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
  • Merchant, Carolyn (1980). The death of nature: Women, ecology, and the scientific revolution. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
  • Mulvey, Laura (1975). “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema”. Screen 16(3), 6-18. doi:10.1093/screen/16.3.6.
  • Palmer, William (2010, June 4). In-Flight entertainment, by Helen Simpson. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/inflight-entertainment-by-helen-simpson-1990620.html. (Accessed: 29 July 2025).
  • Salleh, Ariel (1997). Ecofeminism as politics: Nature, Marx and the postmodern. London: Zed Books.
  • Shiva, Vandana (1988). Staying alive: Women, ecology and development. London: Zed Books.
  • Simpson, Helen (2009, December 13). Diary of an interesting year. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/12/21/diary-of-an-interesting-year.
  • Solnit, Rebecca (2012, August 20). Men explain things to me. Guernica. https://www.guernicamag.com/rebecca-solnit-men-explain-things-to-me/. (Accessed: 29 July 2025).
  • Sontag, Susan (1965). The imagination of disaster. Commentary 40(4), 210-224.
  • Sturgeon, Noël (1997). Ecofeminist natures: race, gender, feminist theory, and political action. New York: Routledge.
  • Şentürk, Gamze (2022). “The language of silence in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale”. In E. Kaçmaz & T. Baykara (Eds.), Bridging cultures representation of minorities in English and American literature (pp. 149–173). Konya: Çizgi Publishing.
  • Yar, Majid (2015). Crime and the imaginary of disaster: Post-apocalyptic fictions and the crisis of social order. London: Palgrave Pivot.
  • Wang, Xinying (2021). “The interpretation and meaning of the plague: Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year”. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences 4(3), 88-96. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2021.040318.

Writing from the Wreckage: Environmental Collapse and Female Voice in “Diary of an Interesting Year”

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 10 Sayı: 3, 1688 - 1701, 28.12.2025
https://doi.org/10.29110/soylemdergi.1775251

Öz

Post-apocalyptic fiction has emerged as a prominent genre in contemporary literary studies, frequently mirroring cultural concerns such as environmental degradation, societal collapse, the scarcity of essential resources and the complex ethical dilemmas that arise in extreme circumstances. At this point, ecofeminist theory provides a constructive lens by emphasizing the interconnections between environmental degradation and patriarchal oppression. Helen Simpson’s short story “Diary of an Interesting Year” (2009) exemplifies this intersectional perspective by presenting the voice of an unnamed female narrator who struggles to survive in a world devastated by environmental collapse, disease and violence. Written in the form of a diary composed of brief, sequential entries, the narrative places the female body into the foreground as a central site where ecological devastation and patriarchal control converge, thereby challenging conventional male-centered portrayals of apocalypse by emphasizing issues of sexual violence, reproductive injustice, and the silencing of women’s voices. In this context, our study aims to explore how Simpson’s short story lays bare the ecofeminist entanglement of environmental and patriarchal collapse by rendering the female body not only as a victim of environmental scarcity but also as a battleground of reproductive control and social violence in a post-apocalyptic setting.

Kaynakça

  • Alaimo, Stacy (2010). Bodily natures: Science, environment, and the material self. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  • Benkert, Bethany (2018). “Hope for change in the post-apocalypse: Gender roles in the last of us”. Digital Literature Review 5, 39-54.
  • Berger, James (1999). After the end: Representations of post-apocalypse. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Bozkurt, Kadriye (2023). “Güzellik miti bağlamında George Bernard Shaw’un Pygmalion oyunu”. In E. Kaçmaz & T. Baykara (Eds.), Kadının edebi temsilleri: Kadının ederi mi, değeri mi? (pp. 171–189). İzmir: Günce Publishing.
  • Cixous, Hélène (1976). “The laugh of the Medusa”. Signs 1(4), 875–893. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173239?seq=1.
  • Crosara, Davide and Gianluca Cinelli (2022). “Between fiction and history: Telling the plague in Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year and Alessandro Manzoni’s Storia della colonna infame”. Interface: Journal of European Literature, History and Theory 19, 93-128. https://doi.org/10.6667/interface.19.2022.186.
  • D’Eaubonne, Françoise (1974). Le féminisme ou la mort. Paris: Pierre Horay
  • Gaard, Greta (2011). “Ecofeminism revisited: Rejecting essentialism and re-placing species in a material feminist environmentalism”. Feminist Formations 23(2), 26-53. https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2011.0017.
  • Hicks, Heather J. (2016). The post-apocalyptic novel in the twenty-first century: Modernity beyond salvage. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Kaplan, E. Ann (1983). Women and film: Both sides of the camera. London: Routledge.
  • Lowenstein, Marc (2013). “Surviving the apocalypse: The role of women in dystopian narratives”. Bungaku kenkyu (Studies in literature) 110, 45-70. https://doi.org/10.15017/26226.
  • Mellor, Mary (1997). Feminism and ecology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
  • Merchant, Carolyn (1980). The death of nature: Women, ecology, and the scientific revolution. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
  • Mulvey, Laura (1975). “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema”. Screen 16(3), 6-18. doi:10.1093/screen/16.3.6.
  • Palmer, William (2010, June 4). In-Flight entertainment, by Helen Simpson. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/inflight-entertainment-by-helen-simpson-1990620.html. (Accessed: 29 July 2025).
  • Salleh, Ariel (1997). Ecofeminism as politics: Nature, Marx and the postmodern. London: Zed Books.
  • Shiva, Vandana (1988). Staying alive: Women, ecology and development. London: Zed Books.
  • Simpson, Helen (2009, December 13). Diary of an interesting year. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/12/21/diary-of-an-interesting-year.
  • Solnit, Rebecca (2012, August 20). Men explain things to me. Guernica. https://www.guernicamag.com/rebecca-solnit-men-explain-things-to-me/. (Accessed: 29 July 2025).
  • Sontag, Susan (1965). The imagination of disaster. Commentary 40(4), 210-224.
  • Sturgeon, Noël (1997). Ecofeminist natures: race, gender, feminist theory, and political action. New York: Routledge.
  • Şentürk, Gamze (2022). “The language of silence in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale”. In E. Kaçmaz & T. Baykara (Eds.), Bridging cultures representation of minorities in English and American literature (pp. 149–173). Konya: Çizgi Publishing.
  • Yar, Majid (2015). Crime and the imaginary of disaster: Post-apocalyptic fictions and the crisis of social order. London: Palgrave Pivot.
  • Wang, Xinying (2021). “The interpretation and meaning of the plague: Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year”. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences 4(3), 88-96. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2021.040318.
Toplam 24 adet kaynakça vardır.

Ayrıntılar

Birincil Dil İngilizce
Konular Dünya Dilleri, Edebiyatı ve Kültürü (Diğer)
Bölüm Araştırma Makalesi
Yazarlar

Selin Yurdakul 0000-0003-1913-1257

Olgahan Bakşi Yalçın 0000-0002-5527-9200

Gönderilme Tarihi 1 Eylül 2025
Kabul Tarihi 16 Kasım 2025
Yayımlanma Tarihi 28 Aralık 2025
Yayımlandığı Sayı Yıl 2025 Cilt: 10 Sayı: 3

Kaynak Göster

APA Yurdakul, S., & Bakşi Yalçın, O. (2025). Writing from the Wreckage: Environmental Collapse and Female Voice in “Diary of an Interesting Year”. Söylem Filoloji Dergisi, 10(3), 1688-1701. https://doi.org/10.29110/soylemdergi.1775251