A New Historicist Approach to “My Name is Red” Novel of Orhan Pamuk

As the objectivity of history has begun to be questioned, changes have also been observed in historical novel writing. In historical novel writing; the way that history is handled in contexts such as time, event, person, narrative technique and place has changed and the historical novel gains a different momentum. New Historians focus on the fictional dimension of history. They think that historical texts are fiction. For this reason, between history and literatüre they argue that there is no difference. They interpret the meaning of the text according to the context of the text and the culture of the society in which it is produced. Postmodern historical novels are the projection of the New Historicalism movement in the literary field. In such novels, the existence of objective information is not accepted. The concept of intertextuality, which is among the principles of the New Historicalism theory, is among the narrative strategies frequently used in postmodern historical novels. With the metafiction technique, the historical events, situation and the reality of the people, which are the subject of the text and thus the works, are problematized. They approach historical reality from a pluralistic perspective. Similar attitudes are observed in postmodern historical novels. We are confronted with a number of elements of New Historicism in My Name is Red novel of Orhan Pamuk. Pamuk, reflects the details of the period which cannot be grasped easily by making use of the reality of historical characters and events, complementing them in his mind, and presents them to the reader on a fictional plane. In this study, ıt is aimed to bring up the reflections of new historicism principles in My Name is Red novel.

Keywords

New Turkish Literature, New Historicism, My Name is Red, Postmodern Historical Novel, Postmodernism