The Wrong Westernization In Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar's "Şıpsevdi"

In the nineteenth century, the sultan's period of the II. Abdulhamid turned the Ottoman Empire's direction to the West and made innovations in education, economy, and social areas. The first law school and language schools were opened, railways were built, and telegraph lines were established.

All this change was also reflected in the field of literature. Under the leadership of Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem, the young writers gathered around Servet-i Funun Magazine and Tevfik Fikret became the head of the magazine and gained the feature of a literary community. The writers of the society generally preferred not to write about social issues, using the oppressiveness of the state administration as an excuse. During the Servet-i Fünun period, the literary narrative was completely abandoned and Western-style stories began to be written. With the effect of realism, realistic life scenes and sections from social life are reflected in the stories, and rather than the incidents, people and their mental states are emphasized. Unlike the Tanzimat writers who came before them, they defended the view that "art was for art". In addition to poems, stories, and novels, translated works of Western authors were also published in the magazine. This situation brings the old-new debate to the agenda again and a new group emerges against them.

Members of the Servet-i Fünun community are primarily criticized for the language they use. With their attitudes in this debate, the community, which has a stronger place in the world of literature, sometimes fell into disagreements within itself. The first serious resentment and disintegration began among the writers of the article "Şiirimiz", in which Ali Ekrem states that Cenab Şahabeddin and Halit Ziya imitate French and use an artificial language in their works and that such European-language expressions should avoid. Another writer of the period who criticizes wrong westernization is Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar. In his novel Şıpsevdi , he deals with the results of the wrong perception of Westernization and the deterioration of the family structure shaped by the traditional Ottoman culture with this wrong change. 

Despite being contemporary with the Servet-i Fünun ensemble, Hüseyin Rahmi was not involved in this movement and continued his career as an independent writer. Influenced by the French writer Emile Zola, he had a naturalist stance. By analyzing the change experienced by society with the efforts of modernization, he focused on the contradictions created by this change in society in his works. Also, his novels are generally about ignorance, inequalities between men and women, and social justice. He gave a lot of place to folk idioms in his works because of his analysis of social life as it is. Arguing that art is for society, he wrote his works in coherent language. Since Hüseyin Rahmi wrote with an effort to enlighten society, he progressed with the understanding of "Art is for society", unlike his period. While his contemporary Servet-i Fünun writers were influenced by the West and focused on Westernization in their works, Hüseyin Rahmi focused on false Westernization and different social problems of the period and its remarkable aspects. In Şıpsevdi, Hüseyin Rahmi used naturalist and realist approaches. The issue of Westernization, which is a problem from the Tanzimat years, examined themes such as marriages, male-female relationships, and cheating. The main character of the story, Meftun, goes to Paris for his education but returns to Istanbul because of the death of his uncle without completing his education. Meftun's time in Paris led him to admiration for the West. When he returned to Istanbul, he became disdainful of everything about Ottoman-Turkish culture. He even tries to teach his family the manners of eating from the book "Savoir Vivre" in order to accustom his family to Western culture. He learns that his sister Lebibe is having an affair with Mahir, the son of Kasım Efendi, their very wealthy but very stingy neighbor. What makes him happy the most is that Mahir has a sister. Meftun thinks that he can get the money he needs for the Western lifestyle he wants to live by marrying her sister Mahir and himself by marrying Edibe Hanım and makes plans for this.

In the book, the events develop in the same characters who are mostly family members and in the house where everyone lives. All the characters are described at the very beginning of the book. Raci, the brother of Meftun, is a character committed to traditional values and represents a wide part of the period. Meftun, on the other hand, is a character who has completely distanced himself from traditional culture during his visit to Paris and degenerated due to his admiration for Western culture. Among Meftun's exaggerated and ridiculous features are squeezing French words in while speaking, wearing single-glass glasses to show that he is interested in literature, and a style of dressing that is evidently caring. Moreover, Meftun tried to reflect this Westernization effort on his family, giving cooking lessons based on French culture, and trying to educate them on this subject by asking everyone to be able to speak a little French. But, family members are the type of people who have a completely traditional culture, and they make fun of Meftun's exaggerated admiration for the West, and make up the majority of the society. However, in the subtext of the novel, Meftun's grandmother Şekure Hanım, and her mother, Latife Hanım are criticized for not speaking out for Meftun's exaggerated and wrong Westernization characteristics. Although his sister Lebibe Hanım and his cousin Rabia were also girls who were brought up in traditional culture, they committed immorality at the end of the novel that would not be acceptable in Ottoman-Turkish culture. At the same time, Hüseyin Rahmi stated that these immoralities have no place in Western culture and that those thoughts arise from ignorance and misunderstanding of the West. In addition, Rabia is portrayed as a mischievous child playing ball on the street and has an unacceptable character in the traditional culture she is in. Also, Kasım Efendi, who is described as very religious and moral, is an extremely stingy person despite these features, which are described as good in the face of the West. Hüseyin Rahmi tried to show that there is right and wrong in both cultures with these contrasts he gave to the characters. At the end of the novel, the unconscious Westernization leads to the suicide of Mahir and Rabia. But, Meftun, who is mentioned for his selfishness and greed throughout the book, states that he is still after an inheritance in the letter he wrote to his family, which shows that the heavy events experienced could not suppress his harmful feelings.

Hüseyin Rahmi accepted that Europe was ahead of the Ottoman Empire and that the Ottoman Empire had to change to reach its level. He responded to the criticisms that came to him with the novel that he was anti-Westernization, under the title "Our Community Life and Alafranga". He states that his aim in the novel is not to denigrate Westernization efforts, but to show what the unconscious Westernization creates in society, and to try to prevent the oddities that do not exist in Western culture from being mistaken for Westernization with ignorance. Considering that Hüseyin Rahmi wrote to educate society, what the novel tries to convey is not that the West is immoral and the base of the people trying to westernize is ridiculous, but that emulating a different culture causes one to not recognize that culture properly. This pretension causes a shallow approach to issues and hides the progress goal, which is the main goal of Westernization. Thus, we understand that his Westernization goal was primarily to get rid of the economic problems and backwardness of the Ottoman Empire at that time.

WORKS CITED:
Gürpınar, Hüseyin Rahmi. Şıpsevdi (Günümüz Türkçesiyle). İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları. 2019.

“SERVET-i FÜNÛN” TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/servet-i-funun. Accessed 6 Apr. 2022.

Çopur, Yusuf. “Servet-İ Fünun Dönemi Edebiyatı Hakkında Çalışılan Lisansüstü Tezler Hakkında Bir Meta Analiz Çalışması.” Smart of Journal, 2020, www.smartofjournal.com/Makaleler/1215134382_8_6.35_ID608_%c3%87opur_1531-1539.pdf.