Refik Halid Karay'ın Koca Öküz başlıklı kısa öyküsü, bu çalışmada, doğa ile insan arasında ve insan ile insan dışındaki varlıklar arasında yeni bir farkındalık oluşturabilecek bir ilişki biçiminin irdelenmesi ve önerilmesi çerçevesinde ele alınmaktadır. Öyküde, Cumhuriyet öncesinde Anadolu kırsalında tarımsal yaşam süren köylülerin geleneksel tutum ve tavırları, düşünceleri, inançları, sergilenmekte, yazarın başlıca ilgi alanlarından biri olan alt sınıf üyesi köylü ve çiftçiler, sosyo-kültürel ilişkileri ile yansıtılmaktadır. Kaynağı toplumsal yaşamda olan sınıfsal çelişkiler, hiyerarşik ayırımlar şeklindeki olguların uzantısı olarak, yazar, köylü ve çiftçilerin yanısıra kadınları ve insan dışındaki varlıklar kapsamına giren hayvanları, yaşama onların gözüyle bakarak ve empati kurarak incelemektedir. Böylelikle, biyolojik açıdan görece daha az güçlü olanların ve aynı zamanda da toplumsal kültür tarafından biçimlendirilen hiyerarşi gereğince alt sıralarda kategorileştirilmiş olanların maruz kaldıkları ayrımcı tutumları dile getirmektedir. Ancak, öyküde, pek çok edebiyat yapıtında olduğu gibi alışılageldik tarzda pastoral yaşamın görünümü sunulmamaktadır. Pastoral bir yaşam karesinde daha çok, refah, üretkenlik ve yerleşik durağan bir yaşamın sembolü olarak yeşil bir alanın dekorunu oluşturabilen bir hayvan olan yaşlı ve yorgun bir öküz, hissettikleri, yaşadıkları karşısındaki tutumu ve ruh hali ile öykünün ana karakteri olarak çizilmektedir. Kendileri de hiyerarşik ayrımcılığa tabi olan köylülerin, toprağı ekip biçmede kullandıkları bir öküzü nasıl metalaştırdıkları, bencilce kullandıkları, gücünü, gençliğini yitirse de yaşlı öküzün kişilikli duruşundan ve asaletinden asla ödün vermeyişi günümüz ekoeleştirel ya da ekokültürel bakış açısı temelinde bir irdelemeye zemin oluşturmaktadır. Yazar, henüz ekoeleştirel yöntemin ortaya atılmamış olduğu yıllarda (1918), yaşama insanca bakışı ve kanıksanmış olan yanlışlara ve önyargılara karşı insanca duruşu ile insan-merkezli - antroposentrik - yaşamı eleştirmiştir. Koca Öküz başlıklı öyküsünde, insanın, kendisi dışındaki canlıların kendisiyle eşit koşullarda varolduklarını inkâr edemeyeceği vurgulanırken, ancak bu olguyu içselleştirmesi halinde doğa ile yıkıcı değil, yapıcı, üretici, dönüştürücü bir ilişki kurabileceği mesajını vermektedir. Bu çalışmada, Karay'ın Koca Öküz başlıklı öyküsü örneklenerek, etik, ideolojik ve estetik kavramların yeniden inşa edilmesinde rol oynayan yerleşik sosyal, kültürel ve politik normların ekoeleştirel bir yaklaşımla ele alınabileceği ve doğa ile kültür, çevre ile edebiyat arasında bu yaklaşımla bir ilişki kurulabileceği gösterilmeye çalışılacaktır

Refik Halid Karay’s short story, “The Old Ox” might be subject to various methods of literary criticisms depending on cultural, psychological, philosophical, social and feminist analysis. However, this study aims at establishing a new consciousness of the relationship between Nature and humans and between humans and the nonhuman. This new consciousness corresponds to a recently developed interdisciplinary field studying the relationship between the environment and literature and is called, “ecocriticism” which applies the ecological principles to literary texts. Since ecocticism is an interdisciplinary field, it exploits the data of the fields such as biology, environmental ethics, ecology, eco-philosophy, geology, socio-ecology and linguistics. Actually, the bridge between Nature and literary texts has not been only recently built; there has always been notable links between literature and Nature’s basic issues. However, man, is now forced to make a radical change in the way s/he deals with Nature, and due to this, in the way s/he handles all other scientific and social fields forming a base to comprehend various phenomenons of this world. Man is really forced to establish a novel method in viewing this planet in which life has to be rendered sustainable; otherwise man’s civilization is to confront a vital problem of existing because of the illusion that man and Nature are rivals and man’s benefit is the single legal one ranking as the first among all living and non-living entities. Ecocriticism embodies that Nature is not the source that supplies man with his basic needs but it is a whole made up of complex systems constituted by living and non-living things within air, water, and earth. In this sense, Eco-literary texts emhasize that Nature is there for mankind now, but not forever. Nature is subject to be consumed and it is not an eternal source. Moreover, man’s history is involved in Nature’s history; being not separate histories. The traditional approaches which overlook ecocriticism, usually employ templates related to Nature, like images of paradise, the virgin land, wild land, deadly forests and mortal seas. Man’s alienation from Nature originates from the duality that man and Nature are two distinct entities. Ecocriticism handles not only land, seas and forests but also animals, cities, technology, recycling and disposing wastes, deserts, primitive and local communities and man’s body, since each member has a direct impact on the rest. So, ecoliterary texts display a specific concern for the representation of the natural world. This is to say that the ecocritical approach involves the serious task of rereading literary texts from an ecocentric perspective. It is obvious that the shaping of a writer’s thoughts depend on the environmental conditions his/her life is surrounded with. Those writers who convey an overwhelming environmental consciousness in their work should be traced and reassessed. Refik Halit Karay’s short story, The Old Ox, chosen to be exemplified among many others, focuses on the conventional beliefs, manners and acts of peasants leading agricultural lives in Anatoly, just before the establishment of the Turkish Republic (1919). Refik Halit Karay The significance of the story rests on its featured content highlighting not merely the pastoral life, but also the socio-cultural relations of farmers as lower class members who are the primary focus of Karay’s work. Alongside the lower class members, fallen women, animals ( as they are involved in the non-humans), have also been examined closely by Karay. The author has presented in the story, thoughts, feelings and the spiritual mode of an ox, the sensitivity of an animal, making it the main character of the story. This is at the same time, the sensitivity of Karay, clearly transmitting a message to humans about performing constructive interferences in Nature, instead of destructive attempts. Man’s history puts forward the verifications of denying the existence of Nature and the non-human because of the ordinary and unquestioned manner of setting social inequalities among entities and forming cultural values under the deep effect of prejudices. Karay has almost foreshadowed in his short story, The Old Ox, the recently developed critical enterprise, “ecocriticism”, nearly a century ago, in the year, 1919. By ascribing to an old ox, the very sensitivity, feelings and thoughts of a human being, the writer has tried to demonstrate that man is not the superpower entity to dominate the rest of the living things, but only a part of the whole to which s/he has to adapt in all necessary ways to provide the sustainability of both her/himself and the rest constituting the whole. The message regarding the relation between the ox and the peasants is that animals are not only for man’s needs, just as Nature is not, animals also need care, health, and rest at the old age. The old ox absolutely and proudly prefers death, instead of being the slave of a man at its old age. Ecocriticism refers to the affinity of Nature and culture, Environment and literature. The story, The Old Ox, is scrutinized in this paper, to indicate the ecocritical challenge of the established cultural, political and ethical normativities, which might contribute to the reconstruction of ideological, aesthetical and ethical conceptualizations. To attain this goal, man has to develop non-governmental organizations, volunteer associations not only led by the intelligentsia but especially composed of the simple man like peasants, agricultural workers representing crowds and people of a community. All public and private officials working within the educational system, the health system and the economic system might contribute a great deal to constructing a radically new approach to the planet’s dark vision. It is also the responsibility of academicians, writers and critics to bring to light the works which have been remaining hidden because of the ignorance of the environmental awareness, and present the rereading of these works in the ecocritical sense in order to reconstruct new meanings, concepts and metaphors within the language, eliminating the implicitly or explicitly negative impacts of them manipulating man’s relationship with Nature. It is not that language determines man’s relation with Nature, but language can be employed in the literary texts paving the way for the ecological consciouness, since language involves in itself, the thought systems and values of a community.