Recalling a Forgotten Travel Book in the Context of Orientalism and Occidentalism: A Turkish Girl’s Journey to America
Ahmet Duran ArslanIn this study, the work titled A Turkish Girl’s Journey to America, which was published by Akşam Printing House in 1935 and can be described as a “forgotten travel book” today, is centered in orientalism and occidentalism. Although Faik Sabri Duran’s name is written on the cover of the book, it is his daughter Lütfiye Duran who went on the trip and took the notes. During this journey, which lasted approximately four months, American Dr. Cosette Faust Newton also accompanied Lütfiye. Thus, the opportunity arises to watch a Western female-sovereign subject and a Turkish girl in a common adventure, sometimes in solidarity and sometimes in conflict. However, considering that Lütfiye’s mother is English and her father always strives for westernization/ modernization, the issue of identity in the book becomes more intense. Based on this, both the author of the book and its creation process, as well as the perspectives of the two women on “foreign presences” and their positioning toward them are discussed in detail in this study. The self-presentation of Lütfiye as a “free traveler” and her various impressions of a pure Western subject are also scrutinized. Thus, a compact theoretical basis on orientalism and occidentalism was created in the study to make these analyses more effective and to reach the deep structure of the text. With all these features, the book A Turkish Girl’s Journey to America can be defined as a forgotten, fertile river of the travel writing branch of Turkish literature.
Unutulmuş Bir Seyahatnameyi Oryantalizm ve Oksidentalizm Odağında Yeniden Hatırlamak: Bir Türk Kızının Amerika Yolculuğu
Ahmet Duran ArslanBu çalışmada, 1935 yılında Akşam Matbaası tarafından yayımlanan ve günümüzde “unutulmuş bir seyahatname” olarak nitelendirilebilecek Bir Türk Kızının Amerika Yolculuğu adlı eser oryantalizm ve oksidentalizm ekseninde incelemeye alınmıştır. Her ne kadar eserin kapağında Faik Sabri Duran’ın adı yazsa da seyahate çıkan ve notları alan kişi onun kızı Lütfiye Duran’dır. Yaklaşık dört ay süren bu yolculukta Amerikalı Dr. Cosette Faust Newton da Lütfiye’ye eşlik eder. Böylelikle Batılı bir kadın-hükümran özne ile bir Türk kızını ortak bir serüvende, bazen dayanışma bazen çatışma içinde izleme imkânı doğar. Öte yandan Lütfiye’nin annesinin İngiliz, babasının ise daima Batılılaşma/modernleşme gayreti içinde bir birey olduğu düşünüldüğünde seyahatnamedeki kimlik meselesi daha kesif hâle gelir. Buradan hareketle çalışmada, gerek kitabın yazarı ve oluşum süreci gerek söz konusu iki kadının “yabancı mevcudiyetler”e bakışı, onlar karşısındaki konumlanışı ayrıntılı olarak incelenmiştir. Ayrıca Lütfiye’nin hem kendini “hür bir seyyah” olarak sunuşu hem saf Batılı bir özneye dair muhtelif izlenimleri de mercek altına alınmıştır. Bu incelemeleri daha derinlikli ve çok yönlü kılmak için ise oryantalizm ve oksidentalizm odaklı bir teorik zeminin oluşturulduğunu da söylemek gerekir. Bütün bu özellikleri itibarıyla Bir Türk Kızının Amerika Yolculuğu kitabını, Türk edebiyatının gezi yazısı kolunun unutulmuş bir değeri olarak nitelemek mümkündür.
In Turkish literature, the travel writing genre remains in the background compared with other genres such as poetry, short stories and novels. Works written in this genre are not at the desired level in terms of both quantity and quality, and the reviews/criticisms written on these works share a similar fate. To compensate for this deficiency to some extent, this study centered on a travelogue.
The first point that makes the travel book titled A Turkish Girl’s Journey to America interesting is that Lütfiye was not alone on this journey, she was accompanied by a Western sovereign female subject (Dr. Newton). However, it is also difficult to claim that Lütfiye, the child of an English mother and a father who constantly strived to be modern and Western, had a pure Eastern identity. Therefore, the book hosted different identity-centered contradictions and conflicts. In this context, Lütfiye’s effort to present herself as a “free traveler” throughout the book was also noteworthy. He wanted to experience everything firsthand throughout the journey and made his evaluations based on his testimonies, without being exposed to the epistemic and gender domination of guides, captains or various companions.
In the study, to deeply analyze Lütfiye and Dr. Newton’s view of “other existences”, a theoretical framework that focused on orientalism and occidentalism has been drawn. Accordingly, the West was the first to understand that the first condition for establishing the “self” is to establish the “other”. The West, which attributes all the negative qualities it does not want to have in itself to the East and makes it an “other/object”, has therefore defined itself as a “non-Eastern”, that is, a “sovereign subject”, and has established an epistemic domination over the East. Based on this information, it is possible to assert that Dr. Newton demonstrated an orientalist attitude and perceived the East as an “object of desire”, so to speak. Dr. Newton who carries crates of “Eastern women’s clothes” from Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Istanbul to America had exhibited these clothes to the participants, again over women, through live models, at various conferences she held in his country. What she does is, in a sense, “the presentation of the other” because she is aware that the different and exotic is attractive. Conversely, regarding Lütfiye’s attitude toward “foreign presence”, some unexpected results are encountered. Although Lütfiye was disturbed by Dr. Newton’s hegemonic approach to Eastern countries, she wrote some expressions that came close to Dr. Newton’s approach, particularly in her notes on Algeria and Malta. An orientalist way of seeing is immediately felt in these lines. In these passages, which wink at “self-orientalism”, Lütfiye takes on a Western identity and watches the East and, in a sense, even creates her own East. Lütfiye internalized the Western/modern identity so much because she identified herself with the new female image of the early Republican period.
As regards occidentalism, the other edge of the binary opposition, the “rival” of orientalism, no unity or commonality of discourse exists even in the definition of this concept. Occidentalism is a concept built with defensive reflexes to counter the attacks of orientalism. The Eastern self, which always feels late and behind in the face of the Western self-established before it, cannot escape the vicious circle because it cannot also take original steps to catch up its rival. Therefore, it is forced to accept “secondaryness” and “laterness” as a fate. Based on this, there is a hierarchical and asymmetrical power relationship whose roots go back to old times between orientalism and occidentalism.
One of the most striking points in Lütfiye’s approach and perception of the West is that she did not see the West as a “single and holistic center” but tried to evaluate different countries or cities independently, like a critic. At this point, the comparison between America and Europe was particularly striking. In addition, Lütfiye did not rely on the conventional, stereotyped information she had heard about the cities she visited, whether in America or Europe, and prioritized her testimonies and experiences in the evaluation process.
Thus, the work titled A Turkish Girl’s Journey to America, which was last published in 1935, can be described as “a forgotten travel book” in Turkish literature. The book is a prolific resource that presents qualified data for the travel writing genre in terms of its formation, author and content.
