An important point of Ottoman-Turkish modernization was the organization of educational institutions and activities. In this context, many educational institutions were opened with the proclamation of the Tanzimat Edict, primarily in areas such as military and health. In time, the female population also began to benefit from the educational opportunities that had initially been available mostly to the male population, and many institutions were set up to provide women’s education. This emphasis on education continued to exist within the framework of state policies with the proclamation of the Republic of Türkiye, and teacher training policies came into force. In order to popularize the reforms implemented in the period following the proclamation of the Republic, a demand occurred for intellectuals who would take an active role in the process and produce discourse. Teachers can be thought of as the practitioner branch of this cadre of intellectuals who’d created a theoretical perspective on official education and training activities, who worked in the field, and who had one-on-one contact with the public. During this period, many laws were enacted to systematize education and teacher training, various amendments were made to existing laws, institutions such as the Halkevleri [People's Houses] that prioritized public education became active, and the Ministry of National Education published many booklets for both teachers and students. In speeches in various parts of Anatolia, Mustafa Kemal Pasha addressed teachers, encouraged them in their commitment to their profession, and pointed to teaching as the most beneficial profession for the period.

Literary works were also used to achieve the desired upbringing. In this sense, literary works can be said to have been functionalized in order to disseminate and consolidate the dominant policies. The novels The Wren (1921), which was published just before the proclamation of the Republic, as well as Vurun Kahpeye (1923) and Ankara (1933), which were published in the following period, are highly representative works that provide data on the sociology of their periods. The respective authors of these novels, Reşat Nuri Güntekin, Halide Edip Adıvar, and Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, were also prominent figures in the Turkish literature of the Republican era. This article utilizes the opportunities provided by feminist literary criticism to comparatively analyze the character designs of the female teacher characters in these three novels that were written at a time dominated by nationalist and idealist discourses. The study will discuss these teachers’ motivations for pursuing their ideals, their reasons for devoting themselves to patriotic service, and their experiences on this path in the context of the hypothesis that the authors had assigned the male protagonists around the female teachers to be their teachers. Feride, Aliye, and Selma seem to have been initially conceived by their authors as teachers with similar ideals. From a major perspective, they in fact share the basic common point of serving the homeland. When considering this basic commonality, the article will also discuss whether a fictional difference is present in the novels of the male authors and the female author in the context of the female teacher’s character design and relationships in social life, in which the concept of gender was positioned within the ideal of patriotic service in the case of female teachers. The study will also discuss the influence of the masculine subject in fiction.

When evaluating the findings, certain fictional differences are noticeably present in the novels of female and male authors in terms of the design of female teachers. For example, Feride, the female protagonist in The Wren, had started her activities that can be considered within the ideal of service to the homeland as a result of a love affair. In other words, although Feride was fictionalized as an idealistic teacher, she was unable to start her story without the influence of a male protagonist. Similarly, Selma is the female protagonist in Ankara, and her motivation for love and the ideal of patriotic service are intertwined. Despite the fact that Selma wanted to devote her whole life to improving her country, the way she served her homeland and her profession changed alongside the changes in the male protagonist. She became a teacher under the direct guidance of her third husband, Neşet Sabit. In this respect, Neşet Sabit was almost like a guide for her. Unlike female teachers in these two novels mentioned above, Aliye, the female protagonist in Vurun Kahpeye, had started her profession through her own internal motivation. At certain points, however, she too was also unable to escape the limited schema imposed by the male imagination. Therefore, when considering the example of Şahin in Reşat Nuri Güntekin's Yeşil Gece, the novels of the male authors can be said to have generally shaped the consciousness of duty, which is endowed to the male protagonist as an a priori orientation, to the female protagonist through the influence of a male protagonist. In addition, the article will examine issues such as the bureaucratic problems that female teachers faced in educational institutions, the visibility of the female body in a patriarchal society, the unceremonious attitudes toward female teachers in the context of gender roles, and the standard of chastity, which is considered indispensable for the female identity, through a critical analysis of masculine fiction in novels.