TERSİNE NEO-ORYANTALİZM: MOHSIN HAMID’İN THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST ROMANINDA “ÖTEKİ”NİN SESİ

Öz

Bu makale, Mohsin Hamid’in The Reluctant Fundamentalist adlı romanını sömürgecilik sonrası kuram ve anlatıbilim çerçevesinde inceleyerek, eserin Neo-Oryantalist söylemi anlatı yapısı ve odaklanma tekniği aracılığıyla tersine çevirdiğini ileri sürmektedir. Çalışma, romanı 11 Eylül sonrası kültürel ve politik bağlam içine yerleştirerek, Batı merkezli medya ve edebi anlatıların Müslüman kimliğini tehdit, irrasyonellik ve ötekilik ikilikleri üzerinden nasıl inşa ettiğini ele almaktadır. Bu bağlamda makale, Hamid’in Müslüman bir anlatıcıyı merkeze alarak anlatı otoritesini yeniden tesis ettiğini ve temsilin koşullarını anlatıcının kontrolüne verdiğini göstermektedir. Sömürgecilik sonrası kuram ile anlatıbilimsel yaklaşımlardan, özellikle Gérard Genette’in odaklanma kavramından ve bu kavramın sonraki kuramsal açılımlarından yararlanan çalışma, romanın monolog biçimindeki yapısı ve birinci tekil şahıs anlatımı sayesinde Müslüman öznenin Batılı bakışın nesnesi olmaktan çıkarak etkin bir odaklayıcıya dönüştüğünü savunmaktadır. Batılı dinleyicinin sessiz ve epistemolojik olarak ikincil bir konuma yerleştirilmesi yoluyla roman, Neo-Oryantalist temsilin temelini oluşturan özne-nesne hiyerarşilerini istikrarsızlaştırmaktadır. Sonuç olarak makale, The Reluctant Fundamentalist’in yalnızca 11 Eylül sonrası İslamofobiye yönelik tematik bir eleştiri sunmadığını, aynı zamanda anlatı gücünü yeniden yapılandıran biçimsel bir müdahale olarak, Müslüman “öteki” hakkında kurulan hegemonik görme, bilme ve konuşma biçimlerini sorguladığını ileri sürmektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Neo-Oryantalizm
• Sömürgecilik sonrası edebiyat
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist
• Amerika’da Müslüman kimliği
• Mohsin Hamid

NEO-ORIENTALISM IN REVERSE: THE VOICE OF THE “OTHER” IN MOHSIN HAMID’S THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST

Öz

This article offers a postcolonial and narratological analysis of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, arguing that the novel actively reverses Neo-Orientalist discourse through its narrative structure and use of focalization. Situating the text within post-9/11 cultural and political contexts, the study examines how dominant Western media and literary narratives have constructed Muslim identity through binaries of threat, irrationality, and otherness. Against this background, the article demonstrates how Hamid reclaims narrative authority by centering a Muslim protagonist who speaks in his own voice and controls the terms of representation. Drawing on postcolonial theory and narratology, particularly Gérard Genette’s concept of focalization and its later revisions, the paper argues that the novel’s monologic form and first-person narration transform the Muslim subject from an object of the Western gaze into an active focalizer. By rendering the Western listener silent and epistemologically subordinate, the novel destabilizes conventional subject–object hierarchies that underpin Neo-Orientalist representation. Ultimately, the article contends that The Reluctant Fundamentalist functions not only as a thematic critique of post-9/11 Islamophobia but also as a formal intervention that reconfigures narrative power and challenges hegemonic modes of seeing, knowing, and speaking about the Muslim “Other.”.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Neo-Orientalism
• Postcolonial literature
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist
• Muslim identity in America
• Mohsin Hamid

Kaynakça

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