A route for mind-body in fin de siecle istanbul

Abstract

This article focuses on Mustafa Resit's Penbe Ferace (1892), an example of the pocket novels which emerged at the end of the 19th century as a new book format. Writers of the era, with a reflectionist and a constructivist perspective, are attracted to a specific type of fiction based on images of rational thinking and bodies under control, especially in the formation of male characters. This perspective is due to a "crisis at home" and it is in the company of a discussion of modernism. Especially in the context of this novel, it develops around anxieties about how Istanbul's entertainment districts take characters out of the rationality/body control matrix. The male protagonist of Penbe Ferace transforms as he wanders around different districts of Istanbul. Mustafa Resit elaborates on how the naval officer Server reflects on the present and the future, especially as he travels in places such as the Princes' Islands, Goksu, and Beyoglu. Different districts in Istanbul and the relationships formed there are examined, along with their influence on Server. As such, Penbe Ferace reflects society at the end of the 19th century. Mustafa Resit questions how the protagonist is driven away in different places, under the influence of love as a dominant feeling, and how he loses track of his rationality. Along with this examination, the social engineering aimed at Ottoman society is also questioned and modernity is analyzed through the concept of the ideal family. This article, therefore, intends to bring the discussions around ideal masculinity in the concept of the ideal family to the fore, and to evaluate them in the overall discussion of modernism, which is reflected in the transformation of the city and the cultural change observed in certain quarters.