The Sources of Unhappiness at Peyami Safa’s Novels

Abstract

This study examines the sources of unhappines in Peyami Safa's novels, and the effects of sadness with the people's cultural, social and political transformation processes. The study interprets the symbolic level of language, word, object and behavior based on sociological and psychological data analysis.

The study uses the novels of Peyami Safa, Sözde Kızlar, Şimşek, Mahşer, Bir Akşamdı, Canan, Dokuzuncu Hariciye Koğuşu, Fatih-Harbiye, Bir Tereddüdün Romanı, Cumbadan Rumbaya, Biz İnsanlar, Matmazel Noraliya'nın Koltuğu and Yalnızız. The general conclusion reached in the analysis is that Safa's search for a main source of sadness in his novels is the suffering itself in this quest. Peyami Safa distinguishes the unhappiness of women and men in his novels in terms of both source and reflection. In a very general sense women are unhappy because of their ambition for European life, being for away from traditional structures and negativities in their nature. Men are unhappy because of change influential especially on women, their intellectual conflicts, deteriorating morality and again hereditary defects.