POST-APOKALİPTİK BİR DÜNYADA YIKIM VE YALNIZLIK: ARNO SCHMIDT VE SCHWARZE SPIEGEL (KARA AYNALAR)
DESTRUCTION AND SOLITUDE IN A POST-APOCALYPTIC WORLD: ARNO SCHMIDT AND BLACK MIRRORS

Summary/Abstract: This study aims to examine the themes of destruction and solitude in Arno Schmidt's Black Mirrors within the context of post-apocalyptic literature. The introduction outlines the general framework of post-apocalyptic literature and emphasises the importance of the work in this context by referring to the author's literary identity. This is followed by a literature review examining the fundamental characteristics, major representatives, and representative works of German post-apocalyptic literature from historical, cultural and thematic perspectives. The work depicts a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has been destroyed after a nuclear catastrophe, culture has fragmented, and nature has been reborn. Through the eyes of a survivor after the apocalypse caused by World War III, it portrays the collapse of civilisation, the re-establishment of nature's dominance, and the individual's existential solitude. The work questions both the destruction wrought by humanity through technology and greed and nature's rebirth within its own cycle, as well as the meaning of the cultural traces left behind. In this context, a text-focused analysis has been conducted on the axes of humanity, nature and culture. The fragmented structure of the language, symbolic elements, the narrator's interior monologues, and descriptions of place have been examined in detail. In light of this method, the multi-layered structure of the work has been analysed, and the relationship between the themes of post-apocalyptic destruction and solitude and human nature and existential questions has been discussed. The study examines how Schmidt's modernist narrative techniques, particularly stream of consciousness, interior monologue, and fragmented temporal structure, reflect the fragmented nature of post-war human consciousness and the collapse of civilisation. In the conclusion, the work is considered an intellectual universe that enables readers to question the relationship between humanity, nature, and cultural values in the aftermath of catastrophe, and an overall assessment is presented in this context.

• Details
• Contents