cycle of abuse fans when the poison drips through
Hello, saw your post about your other favorite literary characters and it peeked my interest when I saw Seniha in that list. İf you dont mind me asking could you explain what draw you to the character, your first impression of her and your general thoughts about her ?
And have you read the play ''Kabus'' which is also written by Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil. Im asking this because even though it is kinda mediocre at best I think the play is worth looking into as almost all female characters display feminist ideas and never judged by the narrator for it. Would like to hear your thought about it if you have read it !
I studied Kıskanmak at school. I opened the book knowing that I would probably like her and surprise, I liked her. An ugly female protagonist who is defined by her jealousy and bitterness? Sign me up. I liked that she was truly wronged but also was a legitimately bad person.
In short loving her wasn’t a surprise for me just like loving Heathcliff wasn’t. She was my type of character and a well-written one.
I haven’t read Kabus yet but I want to. I do want to read everything by Halit Ziya but I can never find the time because I always want to focus deeply on what he has written.
I will definitely check that one out if it has feminist themes. A thing about Halit Ziya I love is that his writing is devoid of machismo, even when he makes use of sexist tropes like in the case of Firdevs.
I have noticed something. It is like in his early novels Halit Ziya focused on young people’s love triangles and in his later works he focused more on forbidden love threatening a family unit. Aşk-ı Memnu can be considered an in-between work, also relevant in that it gives the “bad woman” (Bihter) a voice. What are your thoughts on that as someone who read more by him?
I also find the father-daughter relationships in his books fascinating. What are your thoughts on that?
Hello, thanks for asking ! Unfortunately, I havent read most of his work yet. Especially his stories and his other novels such as ''Kırık Hayatlar'' and I certainly dont think I have read more of his work than you. So my judgment towards the father and daughter dynamics in his books will be lacking at best but I will mainly focus on Nihal and Adnan while giving my thoughts about it.
I think as you pointed out, before Nihal most of the characters that were similar to her were prototypes which helped him improve writing this kind of character and eventually lead to Nihal. So in that case those characters might be different and my assumption might be wrong but I think Nihal might've loved Adnan and was possessive of him not because she saw her as a father, at least not completely, but more like a mother. Throughout the novel Adnan Bey never shows any stereotypical masculine roles while raising her daughter. He is always gentle and certainly not authoritative. Im not saying that women cant have traits that are authoritative but we can see that living in an environment where money isnt a problem and Nihal being his firstborn child might have caused him to be less restrictive while raising her.
The reason I think like this is because in the play ''Kabus'' The character of Şerare says these lines to his father when he asks if she still loves him:
''Doğru mu söyleyeyim baba? Ben sizi daima annemin arasından görür, onun arasından severdim, bir dürbün içinden bakıyorcasına, annemin mevcudiyetinin arasından bakardım da öyle severdim.''
This and reading about how Adnan became Nihal's both Mother and father I couldnt help but think that maybe the reason for her love was that in general Nihal saw her father as, even if not her mother, a mother figure which she lacked in her life. With Bihter coming and threatening this role her father took might be the reason why she felt a distaste towards Bihter. I dont think Şerare and Nihal share any similar traits other than having to face a new group of people that becomes part of her family, and I do think Nihal is also much much more complex than Şerare, I cant help but think maybe this preference towards her mother would be also what Nihal would have chosen if her mother was pretty much alive.
I also dont like how people read Nihal's love for his father kinda like incest. I think unlike in ''Kıskanmak'' this does nothing but cheapening and simplifying the character of Nihal and her relationship with her father.
These are my thoughts and I would love to hear your opinions about it. Please dont shy away from criticism if you think that Im wrong or delusional. I think that is what makes exchanging ideas interesting and fun.
Also, I know this answer is starting to get too long but, When you said that you felt a coldness towards Bihter that prevented you from connecting with her, I couldnt help but notice these are the similar or the same reasons Nihal had for disliking Bihter or having a stance against her. Do you think this feeling was because you related to Nihal and looked at the book mainly from her point of view, or like you said your environment that you were raised had a part in it too?
Again, thank you for asking! Im excited to hear your opinions.
@rastgelebiadam Well the book does call Adnan Bey a “second mother”. I think Nihal is generally searching for a mother-like figure who will love and prioritize her unconditionally. She even sees “the face of a mother” when she accepts Behlül’s proposal. But I don’t think that this has anything to with her love for her nameless mother as a person. Throughout the novel Nihal doesn’t think of a single memory of her mother and what we get from Mademoiselle’s memory shows that she too was rather neglectful because of her illness. So I think what Nihal is in search for is an idea rather than trying to replace a specific person.
But Nihal and her father have a genuine connection. They both have memories of spending time together. It seems like the four years between her mother’s death and her father’s marriage Nihal and her father were really each other’s whole world. So while I do think that Nihal’s jealousy is mostly about her excessive possessiveness, I think it is also about her genuine connection with her father as a person.
The incest thing is complicated to me. I do say that Nihal has an Electra Complex while writing about her on Twitter because of the character limit. It kind of explains her jealousy and possessiveness without me having to write paragraphs. But of course I acknowledge this is rather crude and an oversimplification like Freudian readings always are.
I do think that calling it “incest” is rather crude and nasty. But I also do think that Nihal’s journey specifically being centered on her relationship with her father, her relationship with her father kind of taking the center stage instead of romantic love is interesting. Especially interesting is that the last paragraph of the novel is an echo of the paragraph where she says that she used to want to marry her father like little girls sometimes do (which incidentally probably must be before her mother’s death, Nihal was 8 when her mother died). Nothing abnormal about that, but it gets significant when it is the passage echoed in the last paragraph of the novel.
So no incest as in anything sexual, but I do agree with some critics that Nihal/Adnan/Bihter is an unconventional kind of “love” triangle that will gradually graduate to the Nihal/Behlül/Bihter.
But I do agree with what @focalizer once said about Nihal’s “issue” with her father and others being the intensity of her possessiveness over them rather than the nature of her love for them. Nihal is never attracted to her father, she is attracted to Behlül. So, nothing abnormal. But I do think that there is a “romance” to the father-daughter relationship, not as in romantic love, but as in that it takes the center-stage. It can be likened to the non-sexual bromances in older cinema and literature. They are rarely actually sexual, but there is a romance to how central they are.
I also must say that I think reading Seniha as in love with her brother Halit is a wrong reading too. She envies the sexual freedom he has but I don’t think that she necessarily desires her brother. Though I did last read the book years ago.
No, I don’t think that my issue with Bihter has much to do with me adopting Nihal’s perspective. I don’t agree with Nihal’s perspective on Bihter. Nihal demonizes Bihter.
What I was saying was that I feel like something is missing from Bihter as a fictional character that prevents me from fully connecting with her, not that I found her unlikable as a person. I do find her relationship to her family a bit underdeveloped, as fascinating as it is. She doesn’t feel as fully realized to me as Nihal in that aspect. Which is a flaw in the writing if you consider that Bihter’s arc is about her relationship with her mother. It is fascinating, but I don’t think that we know enough about it. Bihter was raised by this woman, without a father. Yet from their relationship you could think that she was a widowed aunt that had taken in Bihter when she was 18. It is too excessively cold and hateful. But I do acknowledge that this might just be me not understanding a family dynamic like this. My own upbringing was much more similar to Nihal’s.
Anyway, Nihal feels more like a full person to me. I know that you and most readers don’t feel that way, and that’s okay.
Btw, good point about Adnan Bey not being restrictive! He is a rather democratic, modern father.
Hello, good points and interesting as always but I think I need to explain what I meant by when I briefly mentioned incest in Kıskanmak. I dont think Seniha desires her brother throughout the book or that she is in love with him but at one point, if I remember correctly, where he sleeps in his bed, Seniha's oppressed sexuality finds a releasing point with the view of her half naked brother. This is only a small part of the book but it still adds character to Seniha rather than recontextualizing the relationship she has with her brother. So thats why I love it. But I might be wrong and Nahid Sırrı Örik might be turning in his grave because of this take.
Also about the question of Bihter, I didnt mean to come off as ''you just didnt get it'' kinda way or that your love for Nihal's character made you think about Bihter unfairly or anything. I was simply curious what the distance you felt stemmed from. Im sorry if I gave a impression like that.
Still a really interesting read as always and thank you for answering yet again !
Hello, saw your post about your other favorite literary characters and it peeked my interest when I saw Seniha in that list. İf you dont mind me asking could you explain what draw you to the character, your first impression of her and your general thoughts about her ?
And have you read the play ''Kabus'' which is also written by Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil. Im asking this because even though it is kinda mediocre at best I think the play is worth looking into as almost all female characters display feminist ideas and never judged by the narrator for it. Would like to hear your thought about it if you have read it !
I studied Kıskanmak at school. I opened the book knowing that I would probably like her and surprise, I liked her. An ugly female protagonist who is defined by her jealousy and bitterness? Sign me up. I liked that she was truly wronged but also was a legitimately bad person.
In short loving her wasn’t a surprise for me just like loving Heathcliff wasn’t. She was my type of character and a well-written one.
I haven’t read Kabus yet but I want to. I do want to read everything by Halit Ziya but I can never find the time because I always want to focus deeply on what he has written.
I will definitely check that one out if it has feminist themes. A thing about Halit Ziya I love is that his writing is devoid of machismo, even when he makes use of sexist tropes like in the case of Firdevs.
I have noticed something. It is like in his early novels Halit Ziya focused on young people’s love triangles and in his later works he focused more on forbidden love threatening a family unit. Aşk-ı Memnu can be considered an in-between work, also relevant in that it gives the “bad woman” (Bihter) a voice. What are your thoughts on that as someone who read more by him?
I also find the father-daughter relationships in his books fascinating. What are your thoughts on that?
Hello, thanks for asking ! Unfortunately, I havent read most of his work yet. Especially his stories and his other novels such as ''Kırık Hayatlar'' and I certainly dont think I have read more of his work than you. So my judgment towards the father and daughter dynamics in his books will be lacking at best but I will mainly focus on Nihal and Adnan while giving my thoughts about it.
I think as you pointed out, before Nihal most of the characters that were similar to her were prototypes which helped him improve writing this kind of character and eventually lead to Nihal. So in that case those characters might be different and my assumption might be wrong but I think Nihal might've loved Adnan and was possessive of him not because she saw her as a father, at least not completely, but more like a mother. Throughout the novel Adnan Bey never shows any stereotypical masculine roles while raising her daughter. He is always gentle and certainly not authoritative. Im not saying that women cant have traits that are authoritative but we can see that living in an environment where money isnt a problem and Nihal being his firstborn child might have caused him to be less restrictive while raising her.
The reason I think like this is because in the play ''Kabus'' The character of Şerare says these lines to his father when he asks if she still loves him:
''Doğru mu söyleyeyim baba? Ben sizi daima annemin arasından görür, onun arasından severdim, bir dürbün içinden bakıyorcasına, annemin mevcudiyetinin arasından bakardım da öyle severdim.''
This and reading about how Adnan became Nihal's both Mother and father I couldnt help but think that maybe the reason for her love was that in general Nihal saw her father as, even if not her mother, a mother figure which she lacked in her life. With Bihter coming and threatening this role her father took might be the reason why she felt a distaste towards Bihter. I dont think Şerare and Nihal share any similar traits other than having to face a new group of people that becomes part of her family, and I do think Nihal is also much much more complex than Şerare, I cant help but think maybe this preference towards her mother would be also what Nihal would have chosen if her mother was pretty much alive.
I also dont like how people read Nihal's love for his father kinda like incest. I think unlike in ''Kıskanmak'' this does nothing but cheapening and simplifying the character of Nihal and her relationship with her father.
These are my thoughts and I would love to hear your opinions about it. Please dont shy away from criticism if you think that Im wrong or delusional. I think that is what makes exchanging ideas interesting and fun.
Also, I know this answer is starting to get too long but, When you said that you felt a coldness towards Bihter that prevented you from connecting with her, I couldnt help but notice these are the similar or the same reasons Nihal had for disliking Bihter or having a stance against her. Do you think this feeling was because you related to Nihal and looked at the book mainly from her point of view, or like you said your environment that you were raised had a part in it too?
Again, thank you for asking! Im excited to hear your opinions.
Hello, Im gonna sound like a broken record but thank you for answering my questions. I love to read your thoughts about Nihal and Bihter. Though I didnt think much about Nihal before coming across this tumblr page of yours, I started to see how deep her character was by reading your posts about her. While you keep making interesting points about her and Bihter, I wonder what you think about Firdevs Hanım. What are your general thoughts about her character ?
@rastgelebiadam Can I ask, what were your thoughts about Aşk-ı Memnu’s characters when you first read it?
Hello, thanks for asking! When I first read the book I was in middle school so my first opinions might sound well, kinda immature. So I will mix my first impressions and my current thoughts about them. But my first impression was mainly closer to what Matmazel de Courton experienced when she saw a Turkish household. The idea that the tv show provided me was constantly proven wrong while reading the book, so I remember being mesmerized and obsessed with this book because of how complex the characters were and how good the writing was.
Bihter: I was greatly shocked at how different Bihter was in the book and it was one of the reasons why I really loved her as a character. İn the tv show instead of a character with real struggles and complexes she was just a caricature of what she was in the book. The soap opera version of her character was a dominant person who made snarky comments that ''showed people their place'' but in the book, she was nowhere near that. She was more vulnerable in the book, more human. She was still spiteful, snarky, and sometimes cold but all these traits were executed perfectly with the excellent writing of Halit Ziya. As I read how she waited for Behlül in his room hoping that he would come back, what kind of environment she had to grow up in, how she realized her envision about her marriage and herself was wrong, etc, I felt like I was reading a real life human being which was nowhere near what I used to read before coming across this book which made me look forward to reading Halit Ziya's other work. I think her parts of the book are where his psychological descriptions were at their best. She is still one of my favorite character's of his and in general. And from what I ve read I still havent seen a character of his that reached this peak.
Nihal: İn my first reading of the book I was mostly focused on Bihter and was not really interested in her. Now that I think about it, this fascination with Bihter might have caused a prejudice against her as I knew one of them being happy meant the other being defeated. I thought in a cast of flawed characters her flaw mainly stemmed from her being a teenager. Her imagining herself dead and enjoying the pity she would receive from it, having tantrums, constantly picking fights with Bihter was entertaining to read but she really didnt pick my interest. I was captivated by her the most when reading about her thoughts and impressions about the wedding because as a sheltered child, she was maybe for the first time alone while interacting with the outside world. I think her part of the book was a coming out of age tragedy, not for the reason she needed to marry someone or anything but because as an orphan she loved the person who could hurt her the most, Adnan Bey, who she knew would have to leave her someday just like her mother but decided to stay in denial to that fact instead of facing the hard truth.
Firdevs: To this day I still wonder what kind of parents she had and in what environment she was raised to turn someone like this while reading the book. The one thing that I noticed while reading the book for the first time was that although she is bitter, spiteful and desperately clinging to her youth, there are times when she is described as beautiful by the narrator. Like the scene before the wedding where she shows off her clothes even the narrator admits that she looks mesmerizing. I think with this decision of not making her just an ugly, spiteful character but also cunning and sometimes even beautiful makes her a more interesting character to read.
Behlül: I thought that as usual he was more than a dumb blonde womanizer unlike the tv show. He was quite perspective about the things that happen around him and people's emotions which I think made his character even more selfish in the book based on his decisions.
Adnan Bey: Didn't really care about him I think ? He was okay. I mean I think as a grown man he should've seen the problems that might arise with this marriage but I think he just wanted to stay blissfully ignorant of the things that might happen around him to believe the image he had in his head. I think Nihal might have learned this unhealthy coping mechanism from him as they both struggle with denial a lot.
Madame de Courton: I remember getting emotional as she decided to become a mother figure to Nihal. Her reaction to a Turkish household, a very westernized version, was really funny and I remember grinning a lot as I imagined her awkwardly sitting in the house while she realized her dreams about it were wrong. Maybe she didn't want to get involved in the matter of the affair by telling Adnan Bey or maybe it had to do with a moral code of hers but I find it weird how she never told anyone about the affair even when she knew Nihal was marrying Behlül.
Beşir: Might be disappointing but didnt really think much about him. His presence was like a ghost and I think it suits the story too since he was really not that cared about by the characters until the last moment.
“I’m lost. And it’s my own fault. It’s about time I figured out that I can’t ask people to keep me found.”
— Anne Sexton, A Self-Portrait In Letters
depressive episode hit hard this time. I moved to a new city for my college and I dont know if its just a first night thing but I feel really passive and neutral. I just do whatever is told me and I dont know if its because Im too tired, because I havent sleep yet or that I just lack the will power. I just stayed there like a corpse while people were talking in the car. İt just feels so sureal to me to watch this as it happens.
flipped the format because trent is always the one driving.
