BİR VİCDAN MUHASEBESİ: SODOM VE GOMORE
A CONSCIENCE SEARCHING: SODOM AND GOMORE

Summary/Abstract: The novels covering the Turkısh War of Independence era allow the readers to have different perspectives on the incidents told. In his novel Sodom and Gomore (Sodom and Gomorrah), Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu likens the circumstances of the occupied İstanbul to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah believed to be destroyed due to their deviant life styles. On the one hand, while the National Struggle is fought at the front, there is a struggle to keep moral and social values alive in İstanbul. For he patriots, who see that their own people are included in the immoral lifestyles of the invaders in İstanbul, living in İstanbul turns into complete torture. The protagonist of the novel, Necdet feels guilty due to the contradiction with his lifestyle and his heart’s enthusiasm for the national cause. Yakup Kadri tests the patriotic young Necdet with his financee Leyla. It is seen that the lack of will and lack of choice stemming from not being able to act underlie Necdet’s sense of guilt. The main objective of this study is to perform a semantic analysis by showing the causes, form of display and consequences of the feeling of guilt told in Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu’s Sodom and Gomore based on the concepts of guilt and conscience. In line with the concept of conscience, in which guilt is intertwined, the presence of shame is also is seen under the hero’s criminal psychology. It is concluded that Yakup Kadri used the metaphor of Sodom and Gomorrah in order to display both corrupt aspects of İstanbul during the Turkish War of Independence and the individuals writhing witf the feeling of guilt in the same city

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