English Language and Literature

In George Eliot's The Lifted Veil, Latimer's gift of an opal ring to Bertha symbolizes the unpredictable nature of love and emotion. Opals were believed to change color due to emotions, light, or even poison. Latimer describes the opal as shifting with "the light of heaven and woman's eyes," reflecting the uncertainty of Bertha's feelings. Although Latimer has the ability to perceive some aspects of the future, his powers are limited and incomplete, leaving much of life unknown. The opal, which embodies this uncertainty, contrasts with his ability to foresee some events, highlighting the tension between the known and the unknown. He is left to guess whether Bertha's emotions are genuine or if she holds a "poisonous" nature. Through the opal, Eliot explores the complexities of love, human nature, and the boundaries of perception. Eliot's personal fondness for opals adds further depth to this symbol of life's mysteries.

Goncourt Prize (2016) awarded Lullaby, a novel based on a real event, by Slimani tells a tragic story that ends with the killing of two children. Although the work seems like a thriller novel at a first glance, it exhibits a reflection of belonging and identity crisis in France. This crisis, for sure, is a result of France's long history of colonialism. Two protagonists of the novel, Myriam, the mother, and Louise, the nanny, are the ones who are unsatisfied with their identities and in need of belonging. This article aims to investigate the traces of colonialism's effect upon Slimani's characters, especially Myriam and Louise.

In As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner tells a story of a family who undergoes a series of tragic events. In the course of the events, the physical decay of bodies and nature, reflects the decay in moral values of Bundren family and society. In this novel, everything starts and ends with a corpse: the dead body of family's mother. According to Kristeva, the border is designated by a corpse which reminds everyone the bitter smell of death. In this article William Faulkner's masterpiece As I Lay Dying has been analyzed from the point of decay in terms of Theory of Abjection.

This research aims to focus on the narration in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five by the help of New-Historicist point of view. It is worth noticing that Vonnegut wrote Billy Pilgrim's adventures by the help of his own experiences. That is why this work might be taken as fictional memoir and factual individual perspective. Whenever Billy Pilgrim remembers the things happened in Dresden it is seen that he sets out for Trafalmadore. Pilgrim uses the planet of Trafalmadore as a place to escape from the realities of the past. By creating a departure point from the brutal truths, Pilgrim finds himself in a relaxing imaginary place. So, it can be argued that Trafalmadore is used as a nest for a misfit. Vonnegut lowers the curtain of Trafalmadore to be able to underline the incidents happened in Dresden. Hence the more he softens the scenes of bloodshed, the easier it becomes to witness the death of the feelings.

İlk olarak yağmacı, vahşi toplulukları adlandırmak için kullanılan Got (goth, gothic) kelimesi zaman geçtikçe önce mimariye daha sonraysa edebiyata sıçramıştır. Karanlık ve kötücül olana dair olan hikâyeleri niteleyen bu kelime Gotik Edebiyat olarak kendine has bir tarza dönüşmüştür. 18. yüzyıldan Edgar Allan Poe"ya dek Gotik Edebiyat doğaüstü güçleri yoğunlukla kullanmış ve açıklanamaz olayları kullanarak okurları arkaik korkularıyla yüzleştirmeye çalışmıştır. Poe ise insan psikolojisini de korkuya zemin hazırlayan faktörlerden biri olarak görmüş, bu nedenle doğaüstü güçlerle eşdeğer önem vermiştir. 20. yüzyıla gelindiğindeyse postmodern dönemin de etkisiyle doğaüstü bir kenara itilmiş, insan zihni ve psikolojisi dehşeti anlatmak için yeterli görülmüştür. Böylece, bir kısım yazar bu türden verdikleri eserlerle Yeni Gotik tarzının temsilcisi olmuşlardır. Bu makale, Yeni Gotik akımının özelliklerini öncülleriyle karşılaştırarak tartışmayı amaçlamaktadır.

This research aims to focus on the narration in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five by the help of New-Historicist point of view. It is worth noticing that Vonnegut wrote Billy Pilgrim's adventures by the help of his own experiences. That is why this work might be taken as fictional memoir and factual individual perspective. Whenever Billy Pilgrim remembers the things happened in Dresden it is seen that he sets out for Trafalmadore. Pilgrim uses the planet of Trafalmadore as a place to escape from the realities of the past. By creating a departure point from the brutal truths, Pilgrim finds himself in a relaxing imaginary place. So, it can be argued that Trafalmadore is used as a nest for a misfit. Vonnegut lowers the curtain of Trafalmadore to be able to underline the incidents happened in Dresden. Hence the more he softens the scenes of bloodshed, the easier it becomes to witness the death of the feelings.

Güney Gotiği geleneğinden gelen Shirley Jackson'ın ünlü hikâyesi "Piyango" belirsiz bir zaman diliminde Amerika'nın güneyindeki bir kasabada her yıl düzenli bir şekilde gerçekleştirilen piyangoyu konu edinir. Konformist ve geleneksel toplum eleştirisini sembolik ve toplumsal unsurlar üzerinden yapan hikâye kadim siyah kutudan çekilen kartla önce bir ailenin seçilmesiyle başlar. Bunun ertesinde de aileden kimin taşlanacağını belirlemek için ikinci bir çekiliş yapılır. Seçilen kişi tüm kasaba halkı tarafından taşlanarak öldürülür. Jackson'ın kullandığı ironi, sembolizm ve kullanılan dil hikâyenin sarsıcı etkisine katkıda bulunur. Şu bir gerçek ki geniş çaplı eleştiriler yapan ve rahatsız edici distopik bir hikâye olan "Piyango" en sıradan toplulukların bile şiddete meyilli olabileceğini göstererek insan doğasının konformizm karşısındaki zayıflığını gözler önüne serer. Karakterleri, mekânı ve anlatı yapısını analiz eden bu çalışma, hikâyede tasvir edilen gelenek, sosyal dinamikler ve insan doğası arasındaki karmaşık ilişkilere ışık tutarak gelenekleri körü körüne takip eden bir toplum üzerinden konformizmin ve aykırı düşüncenin çatışmasını ve bu çatışmanın sonuçlarını tartışmayı amaç edinir.

Margaret Holford (1778-1852) was an English poet, translator, and novelist who continuously published her works between the years 1809 and 1838. Although Holford can be considered as a prolific writer in the early nineteenth century, her works do not find a place in today's canon and she has become one of the forgotten women poets of the Pre-Victorian period. In The Wallace; or, the Fight of Falkirk, she recounted the last days of William Wallace who was a Scottish patriot and a Guardian of Scotland. This article aims to analyze Holford's poem as an example of an epic poem since she employs the characteristics of the epic genre in her work. The analysis of Holford's work provides an important insight into the issue of women's participation in the male-dominated epic genre. Although it was believed that women were not capable of writing epic poems in terms of their lack of formal education and intellectual capacity, there was a small group of women poets who produced long heroic poems in the early nineteenth century and Holford was one of them. From this vantage point, the fundamental purpose of this study is to show to what extent Margaret Holford's poem epitomizes the epic genre. In a broader perspective, the paper aims to underline the contributions of Holford, who has been pushed to the margins for more than two centuries, to women's writing.

This paper examines the poems in Isabella Whitney’s two poetry collections, The Copy of a Letter (1567) and A Sweet Nosegay (1573) to trace a pro-woman argument in her works. In her poems, Whitney’s themes and subject matter point out that she is a marginal woman poet of sixteenth-century England since she assumes the role of a counsellor for the inexperienced women who might be manipulated by men. Instead of writing in a low-key manner as expected from the woman writers of the sixteenth century, she adopts an assertive and critical style in her poetry. By articulating this pro-woman argument in her poems, Whitney attacks Ovidian tradition and she re-reads and sometimes rewrites the stories of the traditionally silenced female figures in myths and male texts. Whitney seeks solutions for women who are culturally and socially trapped in the patriarchal texts.

Margaret Holford was a Romantic woman poet who published all of her works in the early nineteenth century. At the end of her literary career, she wrote her final work Margaret of Anjou: A Poem (1816). The poem retells the story of Margaret of Anjou's fight for her son's legitimacy for the English crown. Margaret of Anjou was the wife of Henry VI of England and she has always been regarded as one of the most bloodthirsty queens of England as a result of her decisions and actions in the Wars of the Roses. Although the Queen had a notorious reputation for centuries, Holford did not contribute to this negative image of her and she attributed positive qualities to Queen Margaret's character by tailoring her as an epic hero. By writing in a heroic mode and attributing epic characteristics to her poem, Margaret Holford transgresses the boundaries of the epic genre in which masculine ideals and goals are celebrated in general. Holford reacts to the male-centred epic genre with her female epic hero. Accordingly, this study focuses on how Holford fashions Margaret of Anjou as an epic hero, and how she subverts the traditional epic tradition with her female heroine. 1