Changes And Westernization According To The Novels Taaşşuk-I Talat And Fitnat, Felatun Bey And Rakim Efendi And Araba Sevdasi In The Second Half Of The 19TH Century Ottoman Society

After the declaration of Tanzimat in 1839, Ottoman State had to turn its face to the West that for centuries fall behind and feared with awe. Besides the military, administrative and economic areas, Tanzimat reforms launched major changes in the empire's traditional structure, way of life in the city and way of thinking. As the authors recount events as fiction, the three novels depict social structure of the era; social structure is trapped between westernization and tradition and has a dilemma. The three novels tell about western fan families in which everything is measured in materialist values, disconnection between family members and nightlife, entertainment venues, brand and fashion passion and corruption in the state offices. The authors of the period had questioned women's changing conditions according to the status in the society, the difficulty of being a woman, the overall situation of women in society, the existence of traditional and modern thought on marriage and gave freely with the novelistic expression of the prevalence of concubinage case. All three authors in their works, while giving information about the lifestyle of the period, as there is a change of civilization, they make comparisons between new and old. The authors aim to give direction to the society with their works; they see lack of education and wrong westernization as the major problems. When we look at the overall structure of the period in the light of the novels, transformation emerging in the society with the Tanzimat period is seen as necessity by the decline across the West directed by the state.

Keywords

Family, Culture, Education, Westernization, Life, Change, Modernization