View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Dokuz Eylul University Open Archive System T. C. DOKUZ EYLÜL ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ BATI DİLLERİ VE EDEBİYATLARI ANABİLİM DALI AMERİKAN KÜLTÜRÜ VE EDEBİYATI PROGRAMI DOKTORA TEZİ MULTIPLICITY OF VOICES: A BAKHTINIAN READING OF JOHN CROWLEY’S THE TRANSLATOR Ece SAATÇIOĞLU Danışman Yrd. Doç. Dr. Nilsen GÖKÇEN 2010 Yemin Metni Doktora Tezi olarak sunduğum “Multiplicity of Voices: A Bakhtinian Reading of John Crowley’s The Translator” adlı çalışmanın, tarafımdan, bilimsel ahlak ve geleneklere aykırı düşecek bir yardıma başvurmaksızın yazıldığını ve yararlandığım eserlerin kaynakçada gösterilenlerden oluştuğunu, bunlara atıf yapılarak yararlanılmış olduğunu belirtir ve bunu onurumla doğrularım. Tarih: 02/07/2010 Ece SAATÇIOĞLU İmza: ii ÖZET Doktora Tezi Seslerin Çoğulluğu: John Crowley’nin Çevirmen’inin Bakhtinci Okuması Ece SAATÇIOĞLU Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatları Anabilim Dalı Amerikan Kültürü ve Edebiyatı Programı Bu tezde, çağdaş Amerikan yazarlarından John Crowley’nin The Translator (“Çevirmen”) adlı romanındaki “ben-öteki” ilişkisi Bakhtin’in temel kavramları doğrultusunda yorumlanarak açıklanacaktır. Diğer bir deyişle, bu tez, çok sesliliği (polyphony), diyalojizmi (dialogism), çok anlamlılığı (heteroglossia) ve bu nedenlerle olumlu bir tamamlanmamışlığı (unfinalizability) barındıran The Translator’ın Bakhtinci bir incelemesidir. “Ben-öteki” ilişkisi, sadece bedensel bir farklılık barındırmaz, dil, kültür, ideoloji gibi farklılıkları da içerir. Söz konusu romanda, Soğuk Savaş yıllarında Amerika’yı ve Rusya’yı temsil eden iki karakter olan Christa ve Falin; cinsiyet, yaş, eğitim düzeyi, dil, kültür, ideoloji, kişisel ve toplumsal tarihçe ve deneyim bazında karşıtlıklar içermesine rağmen, şiir ortaklığında diyalojik bir ilişkiyi geliştirerek, birbirlerini oluşturmaya ve yeniden oluşturmaya başlarlar. Bir düzlemde şiirin, diğer düzlemde ise çevirinin olduğu bu şiir ve şiir çevirisi ortaklığına, Falin de Christa da kendi farklı deneyimlerini, farklı seslerini getirirler. Bütün düzlemler her iki karakteri, yeniden ve yeniden oluşturur. Bakhtin böylesi bir ilişkinin diyalojik olduğunu ve bu ilişkinin taraflarından birinin fiilen yokluğunda bile sürdüğünü, yok olan kişinin etkilerinin diğer kişide yankılandığını, hem karşıtlıklar hem de benzerlikler üzerine kurulan ben-öteki ilişkisinin olumlu bir tamamlanmamışlık barındırdığını belirtir. The Translator Christa’nın Falin’le olan kısa süreli ilişkisinin çok sesliliğini, diyalojik karakterini, çok anlamlı katmanlarını tamamlanmamışlığını diller ve kültürler arası geçişlerle ortaya sermektedir. iii Anahtar Kelimeler: John Crowley, The Translator, Mikhail Bakhtin, ben-öteki ilişkisi, diyalojik, heteroglossia, polifoni, kronotop, ideolog, karnavalesk, tamamlanmamışlık, dışarıdalık. iv ABSTRACT Doctoral Thesis Multiplicity of Voices: A Bakhtinian Reading of John Crowley’s The Translator Ece SAATÇIOĞLU Dokuz Eylül University Institute of Social Sciences Department Western Languages and Literatures American Culture and Literature Program This dissertation aims at exploring and analyzing the self/other relationship in the contemporary American writer John Crowley’s The Translator by Bakhtinian concepts and phraseology. In other words, this dissertation is a reading of The Translator through the perspective of Bakhtinian polyphony, dialogism, heteroglossia, and a positive unfinalizability. The self/other relationship does not only evoke a bodily difference, but rather includes the differences of language, culture, and ideology. The bond between the two characters, Christa and Falin, representing America and Russia during the Cold War years, who are their opposites in terms of gender, age, education, language, culture, ideology, personal and public history and experience, constitutes a dialogical relationship based on poetry, by which they reconstruct each other forever. Both Christa and Falin bring their own experiences and voices to this partnership of poetry and translation which eventually leads to the (re)construction and (re)shaping of their own selves. According to Bakhtin, such a relationship is dialogic embodying a positive image of unfinalizability and the self/other relationship lasts as long as the voices of each self echo in the other’s imagination even in the absence of the participants. The Translator demonstrates the polyphonic, dialogic, heteroglot, and unfinalizable nature of the short-lived relationship between Christa and Falin in interlinguistic and crosscultural exchanges. v Key Words: John Crowley, The Translator, Mikhail Bakhtin, self/other relationship, heteroglossia, dialogism, polyphony, chronotope, ideolog, carnivalesque, unfinalizable, outsideness. vi MULTIPLICITY OF VOICES: A BAKHTINIAN READING OF JOHN CROWLEY’S THE TRANSLATOR YEMİN METNİ ii ÖZET iii ABSTRACT iv İÇİNDEKİLER v GİRİŞ 1 BİRİNCİ BÖLÜM BAKHTIN ALMOST AS A SOURCE FOR CROWLEY 1.1. Bakhtinian Definition of Language 11 1.2. Bakhtinian Perception of Literature 15 1.3. Mikhail Bakhtin’s Phraseology 22 1.3.1. Heteroglossia—the Diversity of Speeches 22 1.3.2. Dialogism—the Interrelations between Discourses 27 1.3.3. Polyphony—Multivoicedness 31 1.3.4. Chronotope—Time-Space Conjunction 35 1.3.5. Ideolog—Point of View of the Conscious Self 42 1.3.6. Carnivalesque—the Subversive Power of Language 43 1.3.7. Outsideness—Transgredience 45 1.3.8. Unfinalizability—Open-Endedness 48 İKİNCİ BÖLÜM HOW WORDS ECHO IN THE TRANSLATOR 2 How Words Echo in The Translator 51 SONUÇ 93 EKLER 101 KAYNAKLAR 107 vii INTRODUCTION Starting from the 1960s, both the history of the United States of America and that of the world mark a shift in inter-related political occurrences, cultural trends, literary studies and translation studies. After WWII, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two superpowers of the world. Because of not negotiating the configuration of a post-war world and of the deeply-rooted mutual suspicions, they were engaged in an expanding struggle for global supremacy. However, the potential for mutual nuclear annihilation was the most crucial threat that forced each party to reconsider its strategies. Since both sides were afraid of the consequences of a hot war, they fought through rather smooth military clashes, diplomatic bargains, economic strategies, and propagandas, but mostly used words as weapons. Briefly, the Cold War was the period of competition, tension, military buildup, still political battles for support, proxy wars, and conflict between USA and USSR and their respective allies from the mid-1940s until the early 1990s. Identifying USSR as an “enemy,” USA rejected the Russian ideas and ideals of socialism and communism. Americans were haunted by the nightmarish fears related to the destructive threat that the nuclear bomb embodied. In addition to the paranoia of war, several major and crucial incidents such as the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, social and political upheavals, international trade and competition, foreboding signs of economic crisis, overpopulation, mass urbanization, antiwar and liberty activities, women’s and racial/ethnic equality groups, ecological movements, new spiritual trends, rapid advancements in science and technology, advanced weaponry, the fear of the betrayal of atomic secrets, the usage of drugs, . etc. created a chaotic universe and motivated writers, thinkers and artists to quest for alternative definitions, perspectives, settings and meanings in order to confront and challenge social and cultural norms. “There was a renewed emphasis on chance, difference, impermanency, a new willingness to see the new artistic object as a shifting, discontinuos, part of the flux and variety of things” (Gray 558). In literature, speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, experimental and alternative historiographic fiction are among the common modes of alternative, radical, 1 subversive and confrontational writings that provide criticisims and depictions of the changing world and destroy or transcend the taken-for-granted assumptions or prejudices of the readers. In literary theory and criticism, especially translations of non-English texts broadened horizons and helped fostering new perspectives, and arguments. In addition, theories of translation changed from merely discussing the issue as a linguistic one towards discussing it as a cultural incident, for translation is not only the transaction of linguistic equivalences but also a helpful tool in the communication and transformation between cultures in a globalizing but at the same time fragmented world. Two major approaches to analyze narratives dominate the 1960s and early 1970s: structuralism and poststructuralism. Structuralism analyzes the narrative by examining its structure through Saussure’s sign system (which claims that the independent signifier is superior to the signified), and post- structuralism analyzes the narrative by inverting or rejecting the structuralist principles (by claiming that the signifier and the signified are inseparable but are not united). Meanwhile, modernism was changing into postmodernism “with its resistance to finality or closure, to distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, to grand explanations and master narratives—and to the belief that there is one, major or monolithic truth to be apprehended in art” (Gray 558). The postmodern ideology reflects the characteristics of individuals in “its preference for