Bir Protagonistin Varoluş Sancısı: Ruhi Bey

Ruhi Bey is the protagonist of Edip Cansever’s poem and the book titled as “Ben Ruhi Bey Nasılım”. But, in this study, his presence finds its meaning with the presence of other people and the objects -activistsas in the all of the other literary works depending on the principle of narration. Therefore, this study focuses on the analyses of the protagonists and supporting characters which are differing or embracing but continuing all together. The basic embracing role is the feel of alienation which the characters’ falling into emptiness and carrying within them. This role that turn into an illness of maintaining a passive attitude towards the world and not being able to find their own place in it is analyzed by paying attention to the principles of existentialist philosophy. The meaning of this philosophy ascribed to existence and death and the attitude towards fate is analyzed by focusing on the words that the characters use to introduce themselves and each other. These analyses are supported with the statements of existentialist philosophers and the presence of existentialism in Turkish culture and literature is strictly followed. The feature differing Ruhi Bey from the other characters is his questioning and finding answers to his questions. Ruhi Bey catches this feature that existentialism requires people to make sense of existence by releasing his past. For this reason, in the study -as it is in the poem“past” is firstly examined. Ruhi Bey getting rid of his past sorrows by connecting today and burying the dead passed through this process with extensive grief. But the boy who was born because of the pains is Ruhi Bey’s new and fresh face. In this study, this face was constructed with Edip Cansever’s ideas about human “unity” and crowds and this study was completed with discussion of Edip Cansever’s existentialism. The reached judgments at the end of the study are important in terms of concretizing Edip Cansver’s thoughts on the relationship between poetry and human.