ANATOMY OF AN HONOUR KILLING: MASCULINITY and VIOLENCE in TO CRUSH the SERPENT

Abstract

As one of the most important authors of Turkish literature having produced numerous works in genres of novel, story, interview, etc., Yaşar Kemal (1923, Hemite – 2015, İstanbul) focuses on an honour killing in a village where most people are relatives who adopted a sedentary life from nomadic life just recently in Anavarza region in his book To Crush the Serpent. Witnessing his father, Halil’s killing by Esme’s lover Abbas, Hasan is destined to avenge his father’s death. How the patriarchal system is reproduced and the conditions that enable this reproduction exposed in the novel where the decisiveness of society and customs over Hasan’s experience throughout this course are masterfully depicted. The aim of this study is to examine how the relationship between the mom Esme and Hasan is ruined by the novel’s characters, especially by the grandmother after the killing of Halil and his murderer Abbas as well as how the child who has attempted to become the “protector” of the mother at the beginning turns into the “mom’s murderer”. Within this context, the violence and the oppression the child, as well as the mother, are exposed to will be discussed. Moreover, how violence is identified with masculinity and how Hasan is forced to practice violence to come of age in this frame are going to be discussed. Hasan will become the murderer of Esme who stands as the carrier of honour while he is the one who tried to protect the mother from pressure and violence at the beginning. In addition, how Esme’s honour has become an object of interrogation to condition Hasan to kill Esme and how the concept of honour is fictionalized to establish domination over women in a society where the man is determined as the owner of honour while the woman is determined as the carrier of honour will be discussed.