Kimlik Arayışındaki Modern İnsan: Şövalyeler Birliğinden Mr Stone

Bu makale V. S. Naipaul’un memleketi olan Trinidad deneyimlerinden yola çıkarak kaleme almadığı ilk roman olarak önemli bir yere sahip Mr Stone and The Knights Companion adlı romanı ele almıştır. Roman her ne kadar yazarın daha önceden kaleme aldığı romanları gibi ait olma, yersizlik yurtsuzluk problemleri gibi ve bunlara bağlı kimlik arayışı konuları ele alsa da yapısal, mekânsal ve karakterler bakımından diğerlerinden oldukça farklıdır. Mekân İngiltere, ana karakter de eski bir Londralıdır. Karakter ve mekandaki bu radikal değişiklikler yazarın eski kültürel materyallerine bir veda ve yazıldığı dönemdeki modernist izlere bir merhaba olarak yorumlanır. Bu anlayış ve duyarlılıkla, romanın Naipaul’un İngilizleşmedeki içsel kimlik zıtlıklarının modernist isimlere de gönderme yaparak ana karakter Mr Stone üzerinden tezahür ettiği çıkarımı yapılabilir. Bu nedenle, bu makalenin öncelikli amacı modernist eserleri taklit eden bu romanı Naipaul’un yazarlık kariyerindeki ikircikli kimliğinin bir yansıması olarak okumaya çalışmaktır.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Mr Stone and The Knights Companion, V. S. Naipaul, kimlik, ikirciklik, modernist etkiler

A Modern Man in Search of an Identity: Mr Stone of the Knights Companion

This article will analyse V. S. Naipaul’s Mr Stone and The Knights Companion (1963) which has special importance for being the first novel that Naipaul does not draw from his hometown, Trinidad experiences. Although this novel deals with the problem of belonging, rootlessness and relatedly the search for identity like those before penned, it is quite different in structure, setting and characterisation. The setting is England, and the main character is an old Londoner. These radical changes in the setting and the character indicate that he writes this very specific novel as a farewell to his cultural materials as well as a welcoming gesture to modernist traces in literature. With this understanding and sensibility, it can be inferred that the novel embodies Naipaul’s inner conflict in his identity process through an English man, Mr Stone, by referring to the proclaimed modernist literary names. Therefore, the leading aim of this article is to try to read this novel by mimicking modernist works as a reflection of Naipaul’s ambivalent identity during his authorship.

Keywords:

Mr Stone and The Knights Companion, identity, V. S. Naipaul, ambivalence, modernist influences,

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