"Are you Eastern or Western? Thanks, I’m both": Identity, Fiction and Orhan Pamuk

“ I think I get my energy from this traditional wall that still exists in Turkey between East and West, between modernity and tradition. All the artists and intellectuals of previous generations have had an idea of a Turkey, which would be either totally Eastern, or totally Western, totally traditional or modern. My little trick is to see these two spirits of Turkey as one and see this eternal fight between East and West, that takes place in Turkey's spirit, not as a weakness but as a strength, and to try to dramatize that force by making something literary out of it” (Pamuk, 2000, p. 20).

From ancient trade routes to the digital tools of our day, Eastern and Western cultures have always shared a complex but dynamic relationship, often reflected in many forms of art and literature. Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish novelist recognized worldwide after winning the Nobel Literature Prize in 2006, describes his and his country’s multicultural position through the metaphor of a bridge between East and West: "A bridge doesn’t belong to any continent, doesn’t belong to any civilization of only East or West, and a bridge has the unique opportunity to see both civilizations from a short distance" (Papara, 2013, p. 54). Through this bridge metaphor, possibly influenced by Turkey's geopolitical conditions, his novels reflect the intertwined aspects of both cultures while challenging the existing generalizations about them. Meanwhile, it is essential to remember that the piers of the bridge are located on both sides, symbolizing his and other Turkish people’s identity dilemma — whether they belong to the Eastern or Western side. As seen in The White Castle and most of his novels, this discussion reveals itself through the identity formation of fictional characters and the novelization of history (Brook, 2017).

On the other hand, Pamuk’s argument seems to challenge the boundaries that the Orientalist discourse draws regarding how the East is perceived in academic literature. In Edward Said’s works (1978), the term Orientalism refers to a long tradition of Western representations of the Orient as exotic and "non-coeval" with the West (p. 4). Within the framework of Orientalism, the Orient is perceived as mysterious, traditional, and backwards-looking, continuing to exist under the dominance of the West (Said, 1978, p. 4). From this view, the East-West dichotomy can be understood as an ex parte, one-sided perspective, primarily from the West toward the East. According to Said, the West used this dominant view of the East to construct its culture and identity, yet it has failed to genuinely represent the actual cultures of regions beyond the Western world (2003, p. 3).

However, the main argument of this essay is that Orhan Pamuk foregrounds the reciprocal influence of both cultures on identity, rather than defining it through the lens of a one-sided dominance. In this sense, it is essential to recognize their interconnectedness and appreciate the richness that emerges from this cultural fusion. To delve into this argument more specifically, this essay examines Orhan Pamuk’s novelization of The White Castle, which illustrates his approach to the East-West dichotomy through the perspectives of the Ottoman Hoja and the Venetian slave. Within this novel, Pamuk combines fiction and sociocultural components to reflect his hybrid identity, blending Western and Eastern characteristics of Turkey.

Fiction and Orhan Pamuk

As Jarrell (1960) said: “Our age is an age of nonfiction; of gossip columns, interviews, photographic essays, real facts about real people.” (p. 368). Despite the non-fictionality of the contemporary world, what Orhan Pamuk tried to do is harmonize fiction and real/non-fictional objects. Fiction, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is "a form of prose that depicts imaginary things, occurrences, and people" (n.d.). It is a made-up, imaginatively constructed world by its creator; what is written in a fictional novel is created by the author. It establishes a new universe by presenting the fictional characters to the reader, which is referred to as a "nonreferential narrative" (Cohn, 1999, p. 17). However, this nonreferentiality does not imply that the world of the novel is entirely divorced from reality. Rather, it introduces a fictitious world in which the structure can be associated with reality, where real-world affiliations may serve as inspirations for the source of fiction. 

Furthermore, Cohn wrote that “fictional narrative is unique in its potential for crafting a self-enclosed universe organized by formal patterns that are ruled out in all other orders of discourse “ (1999, p. 7). From this perspective, fiction allows authors to freely express their imaginations and personal experiences, suggesting that the author's personal life and experiences cannot be fully separated from the historical and sociological background in which the novel was written. Fictional novels therefore have the potential to connect the author's world with our own by reflecting patterns from reality. In the epigraph of his writing, Pamuk mentions the tension that appears between Western and Eastern idealization as the main inspiration for his works.   

The White Castle, a harmony of East and West 

The story begins with the Ottoman naval invasion of the Venetian ships in the West. A young Venetian is taken prisoner and he is thrown into a dungeon in Istanbul. He was well-educated, clever, and very good at astronomy, medicine and engineering. In the first chapters, the narrative perspective of the book follows this Venetian (Kantar, 2007, p. 127). During his captivity in Istanbul, he is given to Hoja (master in Turkish) as a slave because Hoja was awestruck by his abilities. As a metaphor of the East, Hoja is figured as smart and curious, but self-educated; he could not go to university because of the economic conditions when he was younger. He enjoys having the Venetian as a slave since he wants to compare his scientific knowledge with a Westerner, but he has lots of prejudices towards the West. In Hoja's perspective, the West and the East are in continual conflict: the West, which he desires, represents development and success, whereas the East, to which he belongs, signifies backwardness, and failure. Here and also in laterparts of the book, Pamuk emphasizes through his Hoja character that Europe has been a role model, dream, and future for the natives of Turkey. 

Similarities and differences

At first, the two major characters have almost the same physical appearance, just like twins. They have the same height and the same type of hair and color, which can be interpreted as equality of East and West in terms of  physicality of Pamuk’s fiction. Nevertheless, this similarity is only limited to physical appearances especially in the beginning part of the book. They both have strong opposite perceptions about the world and dislike each other's cultures, beliefs, and ideas. This led to an interesting competition between Hoja and the Venetian slave, particularly in regards to science. While Hoja is the one attempting to establish that the slave is not superior to him in any way, the Venetian slave does not challenge his thoughts at this time since he still has aspirations of escaping. He does not want to incite his master’s rage, instead, he remedies his inferior situation with the impression of superiority conveyed by the ironic narrative that pervades his underlying arrogance. Here, this arrogance notion refers to a relatively common stereotype in Eastern culture towards the Western world, which Pamuk underlines here.

Still, even though they don’t seem to embrace each other's personalities, it appears that their intellectualist side, passion for learning, and scientific developments in the 17th century unite them. This aspect is significant since it shows that science and the urge to further develop knowledge can still be an intertwined part of both cultures, a concept that can be applied to today's context as well. Despite the conflicts and disagreements between Eastern and Western countries in the contemporary world, scientists and universities could serve as a common and universal space to build a bridge between them.

"What am I, and why am I?"

As the days passed by and they started working together more, their intolerance for each other gradually decreased. Hoja learns about scientific breakthroughs in the West through the Venetian slave, which leads him to shift toward a more philosophical perspective. He begins asking questions like "What am I, and why am I?". Here, there are several references to Orhan Pamuk's eastern philosophy and Confucius. In Hoja’s mind, new knowledge that Western science brought to him, which are the things that he lacked, prompt him to pursue deeper philosophical issues. It can be interpreted that this philosophical association is truly a question of the Turks' search of identity for Orhan Pamuk and his fictional character Hoja, who grew up with Eastern traditions and was then impacted by the West. In the following parts, Hoja's questioning of 'Why am I what I am?' begins a lengthy sequence of plays on self and identity between the Venetian slave, where they become closer and more interested in each other. The slave's ironic and arrogant tone shifts as he becomes fully interested in Hoja's thoughts. The primary explanation for this shift appears to be fiction itself. Finally, after living together for a long time, one day Hoja and the slave look into a mirror together and begin to act like mirror images of one another. “Now I am like you’; ‘I know your fear, I have become you”,is what Hoja then says to the Venetian slave. Thus, the East and West have become each other in Pamuk's world, which is also reflected in the narrative toward the end of the novel. There is no longer the one narration told by the Venetian slave, rather, it is seen from both Hoja's and the Venetian's views as one perspective (Kantar, 2007). 

According to some conspiracy theories about the book, Hoja and the Venetian slave are actually alter egos of each other, since they resemble each other like twins and ultimately become one in the end. Or, alternatively, they may have always been the same. Through this metaphorization, Pamuk reveals a critique that challenges the East-West distinction upon which Orientalism is based, by narrating how differences disappear almost completely as a result of communication and interaction. As the book progresses, the Venetian moves closer to Hoja’s inner life and Hoja also benefits from the Venetian’s worldview, which signifies a clear reciprocal interaction and evolution rather than exotic representation of Eastern culture in Orientalism. In this way, Pamuk suggests the end of otherization in a sense, which finds a place itself in both cultures toward each other.  

Through fiction,  Orhan Pamuk's bookmetaphorically demonstrates the harmonization of East and West cultures in search of his identity. He asks, ‘What am I?’ and then seeks to answer this question — whether he is Eastern or Western — eventually revealing that he could be both. Moreover, he undermines the East-West divide and Orientalist discourse by blurring the imaginary boundaries between these two cultures. As he stated in his press conference after winning the Nobel Prize, rather than limiting ourselves to only East or West, we can embrace and maximize the advantages of both cultures. As can be seen through the Hoja and the Venetian slave relationship; his use of fiction represents sociological and historical contexts while also expressing the author's creativity. In conclusion, the novelization of history and fiction can provide insight into the author's mindset and the circumstances in which it was written.

References 

Brooks, P. (2017). Flaubert in the Ruins of Paris: The Story of a Friendship, a Novel, and a Terrible Year. Hachette UK.

Cohn, D. (1999). The Distinction of Fiction. John Hopkins University Press. 

Jarrell, R. (1960). A sad heart at the supermarket. Daedalus, 89(2), 359-372.

Kantar, D. (2007). The Stylistic Dialogue of East and West in Orhan Pamuk’s The White Castle. In Challenging the Boundaries (pp. 125-134). Brill. 

Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Fiction. In Oxford English Dictionary (online). Retrieved October 31, 2024, from https://www.oed.com/dictionary/fiction_n?tl=true.  

Pamuk, O. Babamın bavulu (My Father’s Suitcase). (n.d.). [Video]. NobelPrize.org. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2006/pamuk/lecture/. 

Pamuk, O. (2012). The White Castle. Faber & Fabe. 

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Soumya, S. (2021). East-West Dichotomy in Orhan Pamuk’s The White Castle. The Creative Launcher, 6(4), 198-207.