Yusuf Atılgan'ın Öykülerinde Bireyin Modernleşme Arzusu

Yusuf Atılgan is one of the most important writers representing the trend of modernization in Turkish literature. Atılgan discusses in literature the life of people, especially after 1950s in Turkey, who could be considered as, in one aspect, provincial, or countryman, and those trying to be urban in another aspect. Atılgan’s this attempt corresponding an insightful and stimulating approach in a social, political, cultural and economic perspective foreshadows a human typology seeking to become modern, thus a new life style in Turkey. Yusuf Atılgan performs this avant-garde attitude not only through his novels, but also stories. In his stories classified by the sub-headlines as "From town" “From village" and" From city"; Atılgan narrates this new type of human using rural and urban heroes from the same ancestry and common in spiritual affinity. This new type of man modern, depressed, alienated, disconnected individuals with existential problems appeared in Europe about one century ago represents the first examples in Turkey. These heroes, almost all of whom experienced the pains of modernization, dream of adopting feudal ethos to a life based on urban culture, individuating, and realizing themselves in terms of an existential sense. Ultimately, desperate and lonely countryman, and idle townsman coming out with the identity of helpless, passive, sexually troubled, disconnected, aimless and troubled with self-expression individuals appear. The aim of this study is to evaluate the characters in the stories of Atılgan, thus provide an understanding of both the modernization efforts in Turkish literature and of to what extent the social, cultural, and economic transformations in Turkey impressed the individuals.