Triangular Desires in Forbidden Loves

A comparison of Aşk-ı Memnu and Madame Bovary

by
Zeynep Tüfekçioğlu

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
in
Intercultural Humanities

Approved Thesis Committee

Professor Dr. K. Ludwig Pfeiffer

(Jacobs University, Germany)

Associate Professor Dr. Deniz Şengel

(Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey)

School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jacobs University

Summer 2008
 Contents

Illustrations iii page numbers for each

Acknowledgements iv

Abstract v

Introduction: From The Novel of Adultery to the Theory of Desire 1

Part I: René Girard’s Concept of “Triangular Desire” 5

Part II: A Girardian Reading of Aşk-ı Memnu 13

Nihal 17
Bihter 37
Behlül 49

Part III: Comparison of Aşk-ı Memnu and Madame Bovary

Conclusion

Bibliography

ii
 “İstanbul Hanımı”
by
Osman Hamdi Bey, 1881

iii
 Acknowledgments

I am thankful to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Deniz Şengel and Prof. K. Ludwig Pfeiffer for
the invaluable advice and support they gave me during the writing of this thesis.

iv
 Abstract

The aim of this study is to present a reading of one of the early modern
novels of Turkish literature, Aşk-ı Memnu (Verbotene Lieben) written by Halit
Ziya Uşaklıgil in 1900 and compare it with Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.
In order to do this, René Girard’s triangular desire theory is used as a theoretical
framework. After a thorough reading of Aşk-ı Memnu based on Girard’s theory,
the two novels are compared on the basis of Girard’s idea of a mediator in the
birth of desire.
The results of the study show that the existence of a mediator in Aşk-ı
Memnu is revealed as much as it does in Madame Bovary. Additionally, it is
shown that there are more kinds of mediators in Aşk-ı Memnu than in Madame
Bovary, which consequently influence numerous Girardian triangular schemes
of desires. Based on Girard’s arguments on the distinction between novelistic
and romantic works, the revelation of the crucial role of a mediator in the
characters’ desires in Aşk-ı Memnu classifies this novel as novelistic in a similar
vein with Girard’s classification of Madame Bovary as a novelistic one.

v
 Introduction
From the Novel of Adultery to the Theory of Desire

This is a comparative study of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary

(1857) and Halid Ziya Uşakligil’s Aşk-ı Memnu (1900).1 Concerned with these
two novels, this thesis started out as a thematic study of adultery, soon became a
study of the theme of love; and finally it came to focus on the topic of desire.
Reflection on the relationship between the two works and their
respective authors led initially to ask why the theme of adultery had become so
wide-spread in the nineteenth century and what the circumstances were that
could render the topic equally compelling in nineteenth-century France and turn-
of-the-century Turkey.2 Given the fact that the author of each novel is a man, a
defender of realism and that in each novel there is an adulteress rendered the two
novels eminently comparable. The fact that Uşaklıgil was known to be a
Flaubert admirer, only added to the heterogeneous factors that already at first
sight made these two novels of female adultery comparable.3
There has been substantial research on the topic of adultery in
literature, especially of the nineteenth-century novel.4 Even though the content

1
The editions that will be used in the course of the study are: Gustave, Flaubert. Madame
Bovary. Paris: Gallimard, 1972; Madame Bovary. Translated by Gerard Hopkins. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1981; Halid Ziya, Uşaklıgil. Aşk-ı Memnu. İstanbul: Özgür Yayınları,
2008; Verbotene Lieben, Trans. by Wolfgang Rieman. Zürich: Unionsverlag, 2007.
2
Definitions of the terms adultery and novel of adultery vary, and there is no “single, universally
applicable definition of adultery,” as Bill Overton argues in The Novel of Female Adultery (2),
but here I’d like to give the definition of OED (Oxford English Dictionary), which I believe to
be the most suitable for the context of this study: “[Adultery is] the violation of the marriage
bed; the voluntary sexual intercourse of a married person with one of the opposite sex, whether
unmarried, or married to another (the former case being technically designated single, the latter
double adultery” (quoted by Overton, The Novel of Female Adultery, 2). Accordingto this
definition, both novels under investigation are considered as novels of adultery, which is defined
by Overton as “any novel in which one or more adulterous liaisons are central to its concerns as
identified by its action, theme and structure” (5). For more on definitons of adultery, see Tanner,
Adultery in the Novel.
3
Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil explains why he is a fan of realist tradition in general and Flaubert in
specific in great detail as he focuses on the works of Flaubert and other authors such as Zola and
Dostoyevsky. See Uşaklıgil, Kırk Yıl, 48.
4
See, for example, Tanner, Adultery in The Novel; Overton, The Novel of Female Adultery;
Armstrong, The Novel of Adultery. Also important is Amann’s Importing Madame Bovary: The

1
of research varies from the representation of female protagonists to narrative
techniques of the authors, it is possible to argue that majority of the studies on
the novel of (female) adultery, written in the nineteenth century Europe, focus
on the socio-cultural aspects of the genre as they link the popularity of this
theme with the discontents of bourgeois marriages. I believe for the purpose of
this study, too, the link between adultery and marriage is crucial in order to
better understand the web of relationships in Madame Bovary and Aşk-ı Memnu.
Therefore, before moving into the analyses of the novels, it is worth to take a
look at the idea of marriage in the nineteenth century. In one of the most
substantial studies on this theme, Adultery in the Novel Tanner defines marriage
as follows:

Marriage, to put it at its simplest for the moment, is a means by which society
attempts to bring into harmonious alignment patterns of passion and patterns
of property; in bourgeois society it is not only putting your Gods where your
treasure is [...] but also of putting your libido, loyalty, and all other
possessions and products, including children, there as well. For bourgeois
society marriage is the all-subsuming, all-organizing, all-containing contract.5

Tanner’s definition of marriage within bourgeois society presents two features

that are important for our starting point. First of all, Tanner does not focus on
two individuals per se as the core of a marriage, but rather sees marriage as a
mechanism that organizes the whole society. Secondly, he emphasizes the
integration of one’s libido and passion as well as property into the marriage. In
this regard, there is something missing in the female protagonists of the novels
under investigation in this study: from the very beginning, the marriages in
Madame Bovary and Aşk-ı Memnu are not based on love or passion. What is
common to female protagonist Emma of Madame Bovary and Bihter of Aşk-ı
Memnu is their mistake to believe in a rather illusionary idea of marriage as
defined by Tanner above: Living alone with her father in a small town, Emma
hopes to run away from her routine life and find her romantic idea of love, but

Politics of Adultery, which explores the influence of Madame Bovary in other national
literatures.
5
Tanner, Adultery in the Novel, 15.

2
“marriage itself utterly disappoints her craving to experience the felicite, passion
and ivresse she has read about in her books.”6 Obssessed with wealth, Bihter
marries Adnan Bey in order to be able to possess whatever she has wished, but
soon she discovers that fine jewelry, rich clothes or an expensive mansion does
not make her happy. Even though, their marriage provides these protagonists
social suitability and security, it also brings them boredom and frustration. From
this point, marriage offers these women only a dutiful life that is full of
expectations of their husbands, maids and children. Within the light of Tanner’s
definition, one can suggest that neither Emma nor Bihter is happy in their
respective marriages, because it does not fulfill their expectations. So far, so
good. However, if we just focus on the discontents of their marriage and the list
of reasons that make them upset in their marriage, we may have to leave out
some crucial questions: Why, for example, did Emma have an affair with Leon
and Rodolphe, but not with Monsieur Homais? Why did Rodolphe choose
Emma, a married woman with a child as his mistress? Why does Bihter want to
be with Behlül? This study shifted its focus from the topic of adultery into the
theory of desire in order to find answers to such questions.
These initial questions are still part of the study below and make up a
significant aspect of the comparative analysis. Nevertheless, they assumed depth
and became transformed as research progressed. The thematic framework of
‘adultery’ in itself ultimately proved insufficient as a “ground for comparison” –
to use Harry Levin’s term.7 Hence, instead of a mere thematic comparison, this
study will mainly be focused on the notion of desire as a theoretical basis for the
analysis of the novels.
Desire is one of the key words of this study since I believe that reading
and comparing these two novels together based on a theory of desire may shed
light upon the questions that I am interested in. I am aware that “no one set of
remarks can begin to cover the role of desire in literature, or indeed the role of

6
Armstrong, The Novel of Adultery, 74.
7
Levin, Grounds for Comparison.

3
literature in desire,”8 but my aim is a rather humble one: I hope to present a new
reading of the Turkish novel Aşk-ı Memnu as I apply René Girard’s theory of
desire in order to be able to compare it with Madame Bovary, which was already
analyzed within the light of this desire theory by Girard himself in his first major
work Deceit, Desire and the Novel.
In the first part, I summarize Girard’s theory of desire in order to
summarize and underline its arguments which are the most crucial for this study.
Since in this work, Girard focuses on Madame Bovary to some extent, I will not
present a comprehensive reading of this novel. In the second part, I will only
apply Girard’s theory into Aşk-ı Memnu. For, this novel posits a very complex
web of mediations through which the energy of desire circulates in a single
household. Reading Uşaklıgil by way of Girard presents an opportunity to read
Girard’s theory once again by way of Uşaklıgil. Hence, an application of
Girardian scheme of desire to Aşk-ı Memnu may present a rather different
reading of the novel itself while enabling expanding on others’ readings of
Girard by showing that desire is not only mimetic but also is implicated in the
construction of what is masculine and feminine. The triangular relationships
within the familial network in Aşk-ı Memnu between the (step)mother and the
daughter(s); the husband and the wife as well as the relationship between the
sisters do not only reflect Girard’s theory of desire, but also they seem to cast
light upon gender dynamics. This argument finds its illustration in the analyses
of the characters and specific sections of the novel. In the third part, I will
present a comparison of the two novels; and finally I will try to move a step
forward from literary analysis and discuss the rather general issues that a
Girardian reading of these texts have made me think of. Issues which once again
bring me to where I was initially when I started thinking about this study for the
first time: female identity and womanhood.

8
Tanner, Adultery in the Novel, 87.

4
 Part I
René Girard’s Concept of “Triangular Desire”

The exploration of the role of desire in narratological studies has been in

existence for nearly half a century, since the very beginning of the analysis of
narrative as a distinct area of study within literature.9 Since then there has been
an interest in the notion of desire by many scholars including Gilles Deleuze and
Félix Guattari, Peter Brooks, and Julia Kristeva.10 Even though these scholars
have different reasons in looking into the subtle structures of desire in narrative,
there are two things that unite them: one is “the hope of moving beyond
formalism”11 and the other is their emphasis on the relationship between desire
and violence.
It could be argued that among these theories, René Girard’s work stands
out as one of the most comprehensive which explores the workings of desire,
divinity and violence as he draws his theory upon various disciplines including
literature, sociology, psychology and anthropology. While doing this, Girard
does not only present a rather controversial theory of desire, but also, as argued
by Bailie, his work functions as “something like the unified field theory for the
humanities.”12 For, in his discussion of desire, Girard presents a new
interpretation of modern culture within a broader perspective, including the
anthropological.
Girard’s understanding of culture may be considered rather controversial
since his desire theory is not only a criticism against the romanticist idea of
spontaneous desire for the reasons which will be explained later, but at the same
time, it is a criticism against the modern understanding of the self as an

9
A seminal early book is Tzvetan Todorov’s The Poetics of Prose.
10
See, for example, Deleuze& Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia; Brooks,
Reading for the Plot; and Kristeva, Desire in Language.
11
See Clayton, “Narrative and Theories of Desire”for his insightful summary of desire theories
and the link between mimesis and narrative. Clayton focuses mainly on three narrative theorists,
namely Peter Brooks, Leo Bersani and Teresa de Lauretis. Even though his inquiry does not
include René Girard’s theories on desire or violence, it is useful for understanding Girard’s
position among numerous desire theorists.
12
Bailie, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads, 4.

5
authentic being. This idea, namely his concentration on the loss of autonomy of
desire and the self is one of the main arguments of Girard’s first major work,
Deceit, Desire and the Novel ((1965), Mensonge romantique et vérité
romanesque (1961)). Since Deceit, Desire and the Novel, Girard has kept
expanding his theory of desire. In his later work, Violence and the Sacred,
((1977), La violence et le sacré (1972)) Girard applies his triangular desire
theory into religion and anthropology as he claims that “triangular desire can
explain all sacrifical rituals and religious beliefs concerning victims and
scapegoats.”13 In another theoretical work, Things Hidden since the Foundation
of the World, ((1987), Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde (1978))
he focuses specifically on Christianity as he paraphrases Bible within the light of
his theory. Even though his subject of analyses differs in each one, in all of his
works, Girard emphasizes imitation, violence, rivalry and religion as the major
components of each culture. What is also common to all is Girard’s claim to
universality of his theories and his attempt “to prove that his insight to the nature
of desire is considerably superior to Freud’s.”14 In his claim of the true nature of
desire, similar to Deleuze and Guattari, Girard, too, perceives desire as
collective in its nature, but his approach and reasoning is rather different from
the two scholars. In Violence and the Sacred, Girard criticizes Deleuze and
Guattari for being “faithful devotees of Freud” and for their longing for an
unmediated desire, which may then be a return to a schizophrenic solitary.15
According to Girard, such a thing as unmediated desire does not exist. Girard’s
metaphysical desire, which is also mimetic, is always appropriated and
mediated.
For the purpose of this study, I will limit my focus on Girard’s theory of
desire as discussed in his first book Deceit, Desire and the Novel, in which
Girard focuses on the novels of five prominent authors from Western literature,
namely Proust, Stendhal, Flaubert, Dostoyevsky and Cervantes. In his analyses

13
Moi, “The Missing Mother: The Oedipal Rivalries of René Girard”, 21.
14
Ibid.
15
For more on the link between Freud and Girard’s theories, see Kofman, “The Narcissistic
Woman: Freud and Girard”.

6
of the works of these authors, Girard moves away from a linear concept of
desire that could also be seen as a counter-position against romanticists who
view desire as something originating in the autonomous self. As opposed to this
idea, according to Girard, the aforementioned authors, for instance, Flaubert in
Madame Bovary, Stendhal in The Red and The Black, Proust in Remembrance of
Things Past show us that “the ‘interior garden’ often praised by the critics is
[…] never a solitary garden.16
Among the novels that Girard analyzes, it is Cervantes’ Don Quixote that
provides him with the basic paradigm of the nature of desire. In his analysis,
Girard explores how Don Quixote desires according to others whether it is an
imaginary one or not. By doing so, his desire becomes triangular and it is for
this reason that he loses his autonomy. Just like Don Quixote, the desiring
subject, Girard argues, “cannot draw his desire from his own resources; he must
borrow them from others.”17 Therefore, Girard claims that the relationship
between a desiring subject and a desired object always involves a mediator and
“the spatial metaphor which expresses this triple relationship is obviously the
triangle.” 18
In Girard’s formulation, the focus is neither on the subject nor the object
of desire but on the triangle that they form with a mediator. The mediator may
be an external or an internal one depending on the situation and the closeness to
the subject, but in either case one encounters “a desire according to Another,
opposed to this desire according to Oneself that most of us pride ourselves on
enjoying.”19 Hence, Girard associates the mediation of a model or the desire of
the other with the desire to be another. At the center of the subject lies a sense of
emptiness which the subject tries to fill up by trying to possess what another
wants or already has whether it is love, wealth, success or power: “a vaniteux
will desire any object so long as he is convinced that it is already desired by

16
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 33.
17
Ibid., 4.
18
Ibid., 2.
19
Ibid., 6.

7
another person whom he admires.”20 In this respect, the desiring subject
becomes a disciple of the mediator, which in turn becomes his/her model,
someone whom he admires. Girard explains this mimetic feature of desire as
follows:

In all the varieties of desire examined by us, we have encountered not only a
subject and an object but a third person as well: the rival. It is the rival who
should be accorded the dominant role […] The subject desires the object
because the rival desires it […] The rival, then, serves as a model for the
subject, not only in regard to such secondary matters as style and opinions,
but also, and more essentially, in regard to desires […] We must understand
that desire itself is essentially mimetic, directed toward an object desired by
the model […] Thus, mimesis coupled with desire leads automatically to
conflict.21

Girardian desire is always a mediated and mimetic one. And in the birth of
desire, the main emphasis is on the mediator, rather than the object itself. The
admiration felt for the mediator is also accompanied by envy and jealousy.
When mimetic desire consummates, it may degenerate into hatred and rivalry.
Here lies the paradoxical nature of Girardian triangular desire: for the disciple
(the desiring subject), the model (the mediator) is both the pattern of desire and
an obstruction to the disciple’s desire, whence arises jealousy. And jealousy
“always contains an element of fascination with the insolent rival” as it
intensifies the disciple’s desire.22
At the same time, the model, too, views the disciple as a possible rival
and his/her possessions become more valuable since someone else desires them:

Rivalry therefore only aggravates mediation; it increases the mediator’s

prestige and strengthens the bond which links the object to this mediator by
forcing him to affirm openly his right or desire of possession. Thus the subject
is less capable than ever giving up the inaccessible object: it is on this object
and it alone that the mediator confers his prestige, by possessing or wanting to
possess it.23

20
Ibid., 7.
21
Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 145-146 –italics added..
22
Ibid., 12.
23
Ibid., 13-14.

8
Therefore, rivalry doubles desire as the disciple imagines the model’s position or
possession as even more valuable while the model attempts to preserve what he
has from the envious disciple. It is in this triangular scheme that the model and
disciple confront each other and instead of the original object of desire, their
focus becomes attached on the other as each one becomes obsessed with the
other as an obstacle and a rival.
Girard’s theory of desire, which he claims to be “the basis of the theory
of the novelistic novel”24 may simply be summarized as in the above. In this
respect, his theory provides Girard with the necessary framework for a
“systematic” literary interpretation. Therefore, in Girard’s view desire and
literature are directly related not only because his ideas are originated from the
major novels of the nineteenth century, but also his literary criticism is linked to
his desire theory: the difference between ‘romantic’ and ‘novelistic’ works,
Girard claims, is based on an author’s ability to reveal the true nature of desire.25
According to Girard, there are romanticists who subscribe to “the lie of
spontaneous desire.”26 Romantic literature only reflects the presence of a
mediator since it “turns it [the metamorphosis of desire] to account and boasts of
it, but never reveals its actual mechanism.”27 Such texts point out that “there is
only the subject and the object.”28 Girard argues that it is the achievement of the
novelistic works to reveal the presence of the mediator and its “priveleged role
[...] in the genesis of desire.”29 And it is for this reason that Girard announces
Proust, Stendhal, Flaubert, Dostoyevsky and Cervantes as great novelists.
Moreover, he constructs his theory as he underlines “an unbroken chain”30 from
Flaubert’s bovarystic characters to Stendhal’s vaniteux, from Proust’s snob to
Dostoyevsky’s underground man. “And in turn, the unity of this literature
confirms that of Don Quixote.”31 Hence, it is not only because these texts reveal

24
Ibid., 52.
25
Ibid., 17.
26
Ibid.
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid., 23.
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid.

9
the triangularity of desire that Girard claims them as novelistic, but it is also
their unity that makes them novelistic, contrary to the modern claim on their
originality and spontaneity. These true novelists, according to Girard, restore the
reality of the other in all its actuality and immediacy. However, it is because of
the attempt of the modern reader to camouflage the crucial role which the Other
plays in his/her desires that one tends to announce the originality of the novel.
Nurdan Gürbilek calls attention to this attempt, which Girard defines as
romantic pride as she argues “the romantic pride is the tendency to see the
always-autonomous, innate, natural child in us and the imitator, artificial and
dramatic snob in others. What feeds into this romantic lie is none other than this
pride.” 32
One can briefly summarize Girard’s main arguments in Deceit, Desire
and the Novel as in the above paragraphs. Constructing a theory of desire
through the works of fiction, similar to other scholars who deal with such an
issue, Girard, too, has been criticized both negatively and positively by many
scholars.33 Despite these criticisms, his theory has a crucial role in the
exploration of desire within the field of humanities.34 Moreover, his theory has
been used for literary interpretations of novels from various national
literatures.35
The most common criticism to Girard’s theory is on his formulation of
his triangular scheme by disregarding the gender differences. For example,
Laura Gorfkle and Amy R. Williamsen criticize Girard’s configuration of desire
for being androcentric and Sarah Kofman for his construction of woman as

32
Nurdan Gürbilek, “Orijinal Türk Ruhu,” 176.
33
What I have in mind here is scholars from a wide range of disciplines. Lacan and Freud’s theories
in psychology, Deleuze and Guattari’s as well as Rougemont’s in philosophy, for instance, have
been criticized but also praised and applied by numerous scholars. Such diverse criticism also points
out to the very difficulty of defining and discussing about desire for it is almost impossible to
explore the idea of desire without opposing another point of view. And this, of course, is due to the
very ambiguous nature of desire itself as also underlined by Girard
34
As an example for the prominent role that Girard’s theory has in humanities, one could mention
the 1991 MLA conference, in which an entire session was on Girard and the Golden Age Theater.
35
See, for example, Debra Andrist, Deceit Plus Desire Equals Violence: A Girardian Study of the
Spanish “comedia” and Steve Hutchinson, “Desire Mobilized in Cervantes’ Novels.”

10
fraud.36 In her analysis of Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World,
Kofman focuses on Girard’s representation of woman and desire “which
subsumes woman’s desire under the rubric of mimeticism.”37 Similar to
Kofman, Toril Moi, too, attacks Girard as she argues, “Girard’s theory of
mimetic desire cannot account for feminine desire.”38 She further notes “any
claims to universal validity for his theory must therefore be abandoned.”39 As
one can see from Moi’s argument, some scholars have criticized Girard’s aim at
a universal theory of desire for such a claim inevitably ignores the socio-
historical circumstances that may underline the power dynamics in different
cultures. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick focuses on this aspect as she argues, “Girard’s
interpretive system veils the power difference that would be introduced by a
change in the gender of one of the participants.” Aside from these attacks, some
feminist scholars, on the other hand, claim that Girardian theory offers important
contributions to their work.40 As argued by Susan Nowak, “the ways in which
the Girardian understanding of religion, societal formation, and modes or
relationality informs the relation of violence and victimage to women.” 41
My reason for referring to some of the criticism at Girard’s theory is to
point out the various discussions on his ideas. Even though many of the
aforementioned scholars are critical towards his theory, I think for this study, it
provides an important framework for the discussion of adultery novels as it
emphasizes the relational nature of characters within a novelistic space. Since
adultery is one of the main themes in both of the novels I will investigate, even
on the surface, one can easily notice a triangular relationship, involving a
husband, a wife and a lover. At a rather deeper level, I believe, what Girard’s

36
Kofman, “The Narcissistic Woman: Freud and Girard”.
37
Ibid.
38
Moi, “The Missing Mother: The Oedipal Rivalries of René Girard,” 21.
39
Ibid.
40
These scholars include Rebecce Adams, Luce Irigaray, Martha Reineke. According to Martha
Reinike, for example, “Girard’s employment of a hermeneutic suspicion for the analysis of the
myths and religious rituals which have undergirded the formation of social institutions and
modes of relationality is seen as one of his major contributions” (quoted by Nowak, 21). For
more on this subject, see Nowak, “The Girardian Theory and Feminism: Critique and
Appropriation”.
41
Ibid., 23.

11
 theory helps to reveal is how and why the lover is chosen by the adulterer and
the reasons why a married wife is chosen by the lover as a mistress.
Moreover, I disagree with Moi and Sedgwick regarding their remarks on
invalidity of Girard’s theory for female desire. For, I argue that there is not a
single, distinguishable female desire that can be differentiated from male desire.
Similarly, in her analysis of the early modern Turkish novel within the light of
Girard’s theory of mimetic desire, Gürbilek underlines Girard’s claim to
universality. As Garble points out the applicability of Girard’s theory into one’s
analysis of the novel regardless of cultural, historical or gender differences, she
argues:

That Girard’s theory of desire is a universal one hardly taking into account
local, cultural, or national differences can be taken as a theoretical weakness.
But the theory of mimetic desire takes its very universality from the fact that
its object —desire itself—has already been universalized. It is not a mere
coincidence that Girard bases his theory mostly on the novel of the nineteenth
century, the epoch when spontaneity and originality both acquired a
transcendent value and lost ground, when autonomous nature was
romanticized and overshadowed by a second nature made up of external
suggestions, when not only capital goods or ideas and ideologies but also
desires and aspirations spread to virginal lands no matter what the race, the
country or continent is, when laws of desire themselves were universalized.42

It is for this reason that I apply Girard’s scheme of two men and one woman into
my reading of Aşk-ı Memnu in which the plot revolves around the relationship of
two women and one man. What enables me for such an application, different
from Segdwick’s study, is that, similar to Girard, I will only be looking into
heterosexual distribution of erotic desire even though in my analysis, too, one
can frequently see the homosocial features of imitation and mediation.43 In
Madame Bovary, on the other hand, as Girard himself points out in Deceit,
Desire and the Novel, what reveals his theory of desire is not the relationship
between Emma, her husband and lovers, which involves more than two men, but
rather Emma’s external mediator, the city of Paris. Hence, looking merely into
gender dynamics of the novel may limit one’s potential interpretation of the

42
Gürbilek, “Dandies and Originals: Autenticity, Belatedness, and the Turkish Novel,” 620.
43
See Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire.

12
novel. Although Girard concentrates on the metaphysical aspect of desire, his
arguments may be helpful to make sense of social constructions within the
novel, especially of the relationship between men and women. This argument
will be elaborated more in detail in the comparative part of the study.

13
 Part II
A Girardian Reading of Aşk-ı Memnu

This part of the study is devoted to the analyses of the main characters in
the framework of Girard’s triangular scheme brought to bear on the web of
relationships that take place in Aşk-ı Memnu. In order to do this, I will focus on
three main characters, namely Nihal, Bihter and Behlül and with each character I
will present a new reading of the relationships and the conclusion of the novel.
Even though the matters of analyses may be at times repetitive, the three
sections of this part could be read distinctively since in each one of them the
same subject will be approached from a different point of view. Before moving
into my analyses, I would like to begin with brief information on Halit Ziya
Uşaklıgil and a short summary of the novel.
Born in 1867, Uşaklıgil is one the most important authors of the Turkish
literature. As Noyon explains in greater detail in her study, for fifty years,
Uşaklıgil witnessed the gradual collapse of the Ottoman Empire and for thirty
years of his life, he witnessed the emergence and establishment of the new
Turkish Republic.44 As a literary critic, journalist, translator and an author,
Uşaklıgil “played a crucial role in the development of Turkey’s new cultural
paradigms,”45 most importantly by developing the modern Turkish novel. He
was part of a group of writers called Servet-i Finun or Edebiyat-ı Cedide (New
Literature), the second generation of modernizers following the Tanzimat
writers. Uşaklıgil produced majority of his works including Aşk-ı Memnu in the
time of II. Abdülhamit, when the clash between the East and the West split the
Ottoman society.
The authors of Edebiyat-ı Cedide had a rather pessimistic view of the
society as well as the future. Unlike the Tanzimat writers, who tried to educate
the masses through their writings, these authors did not have a political agenda.
Instead, “their efforts concentrated upon the refinement of technique and

44
Noyon, Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil’s Hikaye (The Novel) and the Process of Modern Turkish Cultural
Transformation, 7.
45
Ibid., 9.

14
integration of forms introduced by Tanzimat generation.”46 This was not merely
a literary agenda, but II. Abdülhamit’s cencorship obliged the writers to
concentrate on “the evolution and refinement of literary form rather than its
social and philosophical content.”47 Aşk-ı Memnu was written under these
conditions. As it will become clear in the summary, there is no mention of the
dispute and chaos that took place in the Empire at the time. Instead, the novel
focuses on the personal relationships of the characters and majority of it takes
place in a mansion. In this novel, Uşaklıgil used the narrative techniques of the
authors that he admired, including Flaubert and Zola. Even though many of the
scholars, who have analyzed the novel, have disagreements on some issues and
they present different interpretations of the plot, as Berna Moran argues that all
scholars agree that Aşk-ı Memnu is the best work of Uşaklıgil.48 Moreover, even
though chronologically it is not, regarding its narrative technique, it is
considered to be the first Turkish novel. For, it is in this work that the Turkish
novel arrives in its perfect form.49 Now let us move into the novel and see what
it is about:
There is a merchant called Adnan Bey who is a member of bourgeois
elite in Istanbul. He is a well-off man, who is highly respected by everyone in
Boğaziçi, where he lives in one of the most beautiful mansions of Istanbul with
his son, Bülent and his daughter, Nihal. In Boğazici, there is another family
known as Melih Bey’s Clan. The widower Firdevs Hanım is one of the members
of this family. There are constant gossips about Firdevs Hanim’s past regarding
her secret affairs with wealthy men in Istanbul. It is believed that it is the misery
of her husband that caused his death as he eventually found out about Firdevs
Hanim’s affairs. As a widow, she, too, lives with her two daughters Peyker and
Bihter. Firdevs Hanım’s young daughters are known in Istanbul for their
seductive beauty. Firdevs Hanım, who is obsessed with youth and beauty,
perceives her daughters as her enemies. For, she is envious of their beauty.

46
Ibid., 126.
47
Ibid.
48
Moran, Türk Edebiyatına Eleştirel Bir Bakış, 88.
49
Ileri, Kamelyasız Kadınlar, 155.

15
Ignoring her age and conventions of her society, Firdevs Hanım dyes her hair
blonde and dresses in a similar vein with her daughters to catch up with their
youth.
In the beginning of the novel Melih Bey’s Clan and Adnan Bey’s family
get closer when Adnan Bey announces his will to get married with Bihter, the
younger daughter of Firdevs Hanım. At first, Firdevs Hanım severely rejects this
marriage. For, she thinks that she is a potential bride for Adnan Bey and not her
daughter. Regardless of Firdevs Hanım’s rejections, Bihter happily agrees to get
married with Adnan Bey, not because she has emotions for him, but because she
wants Adnan Bey’s material possessions.
Bihter and Adnan Bey’s marriage does not go too well as Bihter realizes
that money and wealth is not enough for her happiness. Gradually Adnan Bey’s
mansion becomes her prison, where she is in constant dispute with Adnan Bey’s
daughter Nihal and the housemaids. Even though she initially dreamt of being
the owner of the mansion, she gets disappointed with what she has. On the other
hand, Nihal, Adnan Bey’s daughter cannot stand Bihter’s existence in the
mansion. She blames her for stealing her father’s love from her. Being married
for a year, Bihter realizes that what she wants is not wealth but love and passion.
It is for this reason that she starts an affair with Behlül, Adnan Bey’s nephew,
who lives in the mansion with them. In the beginning of their affair, Behlül and
Bihter secretly meet in Behlül’s room after everyone is asleep. As Bihter’s
passion for Behlül increases, she dreams of running away with him, leaving
everything and everyone behind. On the contrary, after the first months of their
affair, Behlül gradually starts to think of Bihter as an immoral woman, who can
easily give her body and soul to another man but her husband. Behlül’s love and
passion for Bihter decreases, and soon enough he falls in love with someone
else: his cousin, Nihal.50 Being aware of Bihter and Behlül’s secret affair, it is
Firdevs Hanım who puts Nihal into Behlül’s mind as a potential bride so that she
can revenge her daughter for getting married with Adnan Bey.

50
In the novel, this emotional relationship between close family members is treated as completely
natural, since it was a common practice to get married among cousins at that time.

16
 The idea of marriage between Behlül and Nihal starts as a nice joke in
Adnan Bey’s household, but soon enough everyone understands the seriousness
of Behlül’s intentions and celebrates the news with happiness. For Bihter,
Behlül’s love for her stepdaughter is unacceptable. In order to prevent the
prospective marriage, she tells her mother, Firdevs Hanım about her secret affair
with Behlül and asks her to stop Behlül. Shortly after this confession, Behlul
leaves the mansion, and eventually everyone in the mansion finds about Bihter’s
infidelity. As Bihter realizes that she has lost Bhlül, in Adnan Bey’s room, she
shots herself with her husband’s gun. The novel ends with a peaceful reunion of
Adnan Bey and Nihal, as they stick to each other, trying to forget the old
memories behind.
What is apparent even from this brief summary is that in Aşk-ı Memnu,
there are numerous relationships, which have an impact on each other. In this
respect, the novel has a very well-organized structure. In his critical analysis of
Aşk-ı Memnu, Berna Moran points out the mathematical formulation of the
novel.51 I argue that with such a mathematical structure of the novel, in similar
vein with the authors under investigation in Deceit, Desire and the Novel,
Uşaklıgil reveals the nature of mimetic desire instead of just reflecting it.
Similar to Dostoyevsky, Proust, Stendhal and Flaubert, Uşaklıgil, too, seems to
be aware of any possible direction that desire may lead: attraction, frustration,
obsession, victimization, deception, etc. In Aşk-ı Memnu, each character pursues
these permutations of desire. In this novel then we have a maelstrom of models
and imitations, both also changing roles. Either in the mansion or outside on a
picnic or during a wedding ceremony, in the lives of a mother and their
daughters, a father and his children, one can find the Girardian scheme of desire.
Girard argues, “internal mediation exerts its dissolving power at the very
heart of the family itself.”52 This he claims “affects a dimension of existence
which remains more or less inviolable in the French novelists.”53 Here what
Girard has in mind is Dostoyevsky; and he compares his works with those of

51
Moran, Türk Romanına Eleştirel Bir Bakış, 92.
52
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 42.
53
Ibid.

17
French novelists. Yet I believe what Girard argues about Dostoyevsky’s works
is also valid for Aşk-ı Memnu, too since the whole plot in the novel resolves
around family relations, revealing various internal mediations among the
members of the family. In Aşk-ı Memnu, as desire circulates among the
characters, the disciple copies the model, and in turn, the disciple is copied by
others. The duplication and reduplication provides further models for other
disciples, which also includes the diversion of model-disciple relationship. It is
possible to see how mimetic desire makes for convulsions within the entire
community in the novel: since desire is spread by imitation and vice versa, i.e.,
imitation spreads desire, the model-disciple relationship expands among the
single pairs of doubles and becomes re-produced throughout the family.

A. Nihal

It has long been a critical commonplace that there is no feminine

Bildungsroman. But if the central theme of the Bildungsroman is the
education of the hero who is brought to a high level of consciousness through
a serious of experiences that lead to his development, then many of the great
novels that deal with women treat similar themes. From Emma to Jane Eyre
to Middlemarch to Anna Karenina to Portrait of a Lady to Lady Chatterley’s
Lover and beyond, the novel presents a search for self, an education of mind
and feelings. But unlike the male Bildungsroman, the feminine
Bildungsroman takes place in or on the periphery of marriage. That is its most
striking characteristics.54

As Elaine Baruch argues, the feminine Bildungsroman, which is the novel of the
development of a female character, takes place “in or on the periphery” of
marriage. In this respect, one could add Aşk-ı Memnu to Baruch’s list of
feminine Bildungsromane. What differentiates Aşk-ı Memnu from the other
novels on her list, however, is the fact that in the case of Uşaklıgil’s novel it is
not the development of the married female character—nor of the adulterous one
for that matter —but rather of her stepdaughter, Nihal that is at stake. It is only
after her father Adnan Bey marries Bihter that Nihal enters the path of growth
and recognition, and comes to attain “a high level of consciousness.” The series

54
Elaine Hoffman Baruch, Women, Love and Power, New York& London: New York University
Press, 1991, 122.

18
of experiences that lead Nihal to her development are inextricably linked with
her relationship to her stepmother Bihter.55
What prepares Nihal’s development is her attempt to imitate her
mediator. Nihal’s desire does not come spontaneously to her, given the fact that
she is a simple girl, just as “desires do not come spontaneously to a simple man
like Sancho”56. “It is Don Quixote who has put them into his head.”57 It is Bihter
who has put them into Nihal’s head. ‘Why, then, does Nihal choose Bihter as a
model?’ is a simple question which finds its answer in various parts of the novel.
As her stepmother, Bihter becomes a rival for Nihal. Hence, from the
very beginning, the first Girardian triangle appears among the daughter, the
father, and the stepmother. Berna Moran too, argues that Aşk-ı Memnu is an
example of a Bildungsroman and situates Nihal as its heroine:

If we treat Nihal’s story on its own, we see that it is a Bildungsroman

including the theme of isolation. Nihal moves from childhood into girlhood;
from simplicity into maturity and as she moves from one phase of life to
another, through her painful experiences, she gains new knowledge on people
and life; she arrives at a new level of consciousness.58

55
There are few studies on the children of adulterous woman in literature. See for example,
Segal’s The Adulteress’ Child: Authorship and Desire in the 19th century; Overton, “Children and
Childlessness in the Novel of Female Adultery.” The main focus of these studies is the gender of
the children. These scholars agree that in most novels of female adultery, the adulteress has a
daughter. The other possibility is to have a son from a lover. Even though these possibilities in
numerous novels such as Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Effi Briest or Woman of Thirty are
discussed in great detail, there is no mention of a stepchild. In this respect, the extended analysis
of the relationship between an adulteress and her stepdaughter in Aşk-ı Memnu may be the
beginning of future research which may fill a gap in this area. Moreover, the fact that the Nihal is
Bihter’s stepdaughter decreases the natural age gap between a mother and her daughter.
Additionally, as a substitude of her mother, Bihter becomes an important role model in Nihal’s
life, yet this closeness of the two females provides the perfect conditions for a Girardian model-
disciple relationship as well. In this respect, the analysis of a stepmother and her children may
also provide interesting insights on Girard’s theory, regardless of the genre of the novel. One
should also keep in mind that the relationship between Firdevs Hanım and Bihter present the two
adulteresses as the mother and daughter. This also has not been mentioned in any of the studies,
which deal with an adulteress’ children. When we change our focus from the relationship between
Bihter and Nihal to the one between Firdevs Hanım and Bihter, we may find interesting dynamics
of imitated desire. In this study the subject will be dealt with in relation to the theme of adultery
and Girard’s idea of mediation and the various links among Firdevs Hanım, Bihter and Nihal will
be analyzed in depth.
56
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 3.
57
Ibid.
58
For discussion of this passage in Moran, see Türk Romanına Eleştirel Bir Bakış, 80: “Nihal’in
öyküsünü kendi başına ele alırsak Aşk-ı Memnu’nun yalnızlık temasını da içeren bir
Bildungsroman olduğunu görürüz. Nihal çocukluktan genç kızlığa, basitlikten olgunluğa geçer ve

19
Moran’s analysis of Nihal’s story in Aşk-ı Memnu is strikingly similar to
Baruch’s definition of a Bildungsroman since both scholars emphasize the
personal development of a female character of the novel through a serious of
experiences. Moran further claims that Aşk-ı Memnu is divided between the
stories of the two female characters Nihal and Bihter, and he develops his
analysis on the basis of such division.59 However, I argue that such a
development would not have come into existence had Bihter not moved into
Adnan Bey’s mansion. Hence, in order to better understand the novel, one
should not see Nihal’s and Bihter’s as two independent stories, but rather
explore the connections between them in order to grasp that one would not have
existed without the other. Nihal’s development, however, is not continuous:
after Bihter’s suicide at the end of the novel, Nihal returns to the state of
childhood. The end of the novel brings us back to where the narrative had
begun. Thus Nihal’s complex story is an example of an aborted Bildung.
In the beginning of the novel, as Uşaklıgil introduces the main characters
of the novel to his reader, the everyday life in the mansion prior to Bihter’s
arrival is described in detail. It is from these initial chapters of the novel that we
learn the intensity of the relationship between Nihal and Adnan Bey. Adnan Bey
is worried about Nihal’s reaction to his prospective marriage more than the
reaction of anyone else since, “die Einsamkeit hatte Vater und Tochter so eng
zusammengeschweißt, dass sie sich nur wohl fühlten, wenn sie sich in der
Umgebung des jeweils anderen aufhielten” (VL 52).60 Given the closeness of the
bond to her father, when she hears that there is someone new who will join them
in the mansion, Nihal does not know what to make of it, yet she feels threatened
by the potential existence of a stranger: “Wo würde ihr Zimmer sein? War diese
Frau schön, war sie schöner als sie selbst? Wie würde ihr Vater sie nennen? In
welchem Zimmer sollte sie schlafen? [...] –und diese Frage stellte sie als

yaşamının bir evresinden ötekine geçerken acı deneyimleriyle, insanlar ve hayat hakkında yeni bir
anlayış kazanır, yeni bir bilinç düzeyine varır.” Unless otherwise indicated, all the translations
from Turkish into English are mine.
59
Moran, Türk Romanına Eleştirel Bir Bakış, 81.
60
“Yalnızlık bu baba ile kızı o kadar sıkı rabıtalarla bağlamış idi ki ancak birbirinin havası
muhitinde yaşamaktan haz alabiliyorlardı” Aşk-ı Memnû, 69.

20
allerletzte- würde ihr Vater sie wohl weiterhin so lieb haben wie bisher?” (VB
86-7).61 The questions that preoccupy Nihal even before Bihter’s arrival in her
life, already refer to the potential rivalry between them. And it is Adnan Bey’s
marriage and what it gradually changes in the mansion that causes Nihal to
gradually change in turn. Hence, Nihal’s development, in similar vein with a
feminine Bildungsroman that takes place ‘in or on the periphery of marriage,’
starts only after Bihter comes into her life. In this respect, Bihter becomes
Nihal’s mediator, as argued by Girard: “the impulse toward the object is
ultimately an impulse toward the mediator; in internal mediation this impulse is
checked by the mediator himself since he desires, or perhaps, possesses the
object.”62
After Bihter moves into the mansion, a physical and psychological gap
between the father and the daughter starts to appear, since now Bihter, the
mediator, possesses Adnan Bey. As Girard argues, the existence of such a
mediator brings about a combination of feelings: “jealousy and envy imply a
third presence: object, subject, and a third person toward whom the jealousy or
envy is directed.”63 It is for this reason that more than the relationship between
Nihal, the subject, and Adnan Bey, the object, Aşk-ı Memnu focuses on the
relationship between Nihal and Bihter, toward whom Nihal’s jealousy or envy is
directed.
As the door between Nihal and Adnan Bey’s rooms is closed for the first
time, the distance between Nihal and Adnan Bey becomes apparent: “Für sie
was nur eines wichtig: Zwischen ihr und ihrem Vater hatte sich eine Tür
gescholessen, und zwischen der fremden Frau und ihm hatte sich eine [..] Tür
geöffnet” (VL 116).64 As the novel progresses, Nihal blames Bihter for every

61
All parenthetical references to VL Lieben (VL) are to the 2007 Unionsverlag edition, translated
from Turkish into German by Wolfgang Rieman. Each reference will be followed by the original
text from the 2008 Özgür Yayınları edition of Aşk-ı Memnû. “Odası nerede olucaktı? Bu kadın
güzel kendisinden daha mı güzeldi? Beybabası ona ne diyecekti? Hangi odada yatıcaktı [...]-
ondan sonra babası Nihal’i gene evvelki kadar sevecek miydi?” Aşk-ı Memnû, 106.
62
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 10.
63
Ibid., 12.
64
“Onun için yalnız bir şeyin ehemmiyeti vardı: Babasıyla kendisinin arasında bir kapı kapanırken
onunla yabancı bir kadın arasında […] bir kapının açılmış olması” Aşk-ı Memnû, 138.

21
bad thing that happens. She rightly suspects that it is Bihter who sends
Mademoiselle de Courton to France and, not so rightly, she blames Bihter for
sending Bülent to boarding school and for sending away Şayeste Hanım and her
family.65 These, we may surmise, are the series of incidents that bring Nihal’s
jealousy of Bihter to crystallize. With Bihter’s arrival, those she has lived with
most of her life move away and the ‘demography’, as it were, of the mansion is
radically altered. Thus not only does she see Bihter as a potential rival who takes
her father away, but also holds her responsible for the secession of all her
beloved ones.
Girard argues that jealousy is not merely a negative attitude toward
another. “[T]rue jealousy,” he writes, “is infinitely more profound and complex;
it always contains an element of fascination with the insolent rival.”66 In other
words, in “true jealousy,” the resentment on the surface conceals the desire for
emulation and, beyond emulation, the desire to be the rival. For Nihal this means
to be Bihter. Thus we have arrived at the crux of Girard’s theory: the fascination
towards the mediator is tantamount to the desire to be like him/her. It conceals
the desire to be someone else. Once we accept this characteristic of jealousy, as
a dialectic complex of emotions bearing radical oppositions, we are compelled
to accept yet another dimension in this complexity: desire is not only imitated,
but also mediated. In other words, the desire to be that someone else, also
harbors the fact that one is going to desire the one whom the object of the initial
jealousy desires. We shall now unravel the stages of Nihal’s desire by this
Girardian mechanism of desire.
In Aşk-ı Memnu, aside from her jealousy, Nihal’s fascination towards
Bihter is aroused in their very first meeting:

65
In his analysis of Aşk-ı Memnû, Moran focuses on this aspect of the novel as he claims that
Bihter only sends Mademoiselle de Courton away since she has witnessed Bihter and Behlül’s
affair accidentally. Because of her fear that Bihter convinces Adnan Bey to send Mademoiselle to
France. Moran further claims that Bülent was supposed to be sent to Galatasaray Lisesi at that age
regardless of Adnan Bey’s marriage. Likewise the maid Şayeste Hanım leaves the mansion
willingly since her husband obtains a better position elsewhere and her daughter will get married.
For a more detailed reading of this issue, see Moran, Türk Romanına Eleştirel Bir Bakış, 68-88.
66
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 12.

22
 Was sie so gefürchtet hatte, was ihre Seele mit grauenhaften Albträumen
geplagt hatte, trat ihr nun in Gestalt dieser jungen, schönen, lächelnden Frau
entgegen, die von einem frischen Frühlingshauch umweht wurde und wie ein
Strauß Veilchen duftete. War es nicht so? Dieser Duft schien Nihals
Befürchtungen zu zerstreuen […] Es schien, als öffne sich ihr ganzes Wesen
diesem Lächeln, so wie ein Lächeln Rosen aufgehen lässt” (VL 108-109).67

Bihter’s scent, her smile, her very appearance fascinate Nihal. She feels relieved
that the newcomer is nothing like she imagined. As the stepmother and daughter
become friends, Nihal “kam es vor, als erwache sie aus einem furchbaren
Traum” (VL 109).68 However, as the Girardian relationship between the subject
and the mediator reveals itself in the novel, Nihal’s relief ceases soon although
she continues to be fascinated by Bihter. What Nihal feels towards Bihter is not
fascination alone, since “the subject is torn between two opposite feelings
toward his model—the most submissive reverence and the most intense malice.
This is the passion we called hatred.”69
At the picnic held for Bihter and Adnan Bey’s first anniversary, Nihal,
for the first time, confesses her feelings towards Bihter to Madeimoselle de
Courton: “Ich finde nicht die Kraft, um mit ihr zu leben” (VL 154), she says as
she cries and faces her hatred towards Bihter.70 However, her hatred is
accompanied by her continuing fascination. In this respect, too, Nihal entirely
coalesces with Girard’s definition since,

the person who hates first hates himself for the secret admiration concealed by
his hatred. In an effort to hide this desperate admiration from others, and from
himself, he no longer wants to see in his mediator anything but an obstacle.
The secondary role of the mediator thus becomes primary, concealing his
original function of a model scrupulously imitated.71

Hence, Nihal tries to spend as much time with Bihter as possible. Yet she does it
in such a way that she makes sure those in the mansion, especially Adnan Bey,

67
“Demek, o kadar korkulan şey, onun biçare ruhunu müthiş bir afetin kabusları içinde ezen şey
bu genç, güzel, gülümseyen kadın, bu bir menekşe kadar havasında bahar taze bahar nefesi uçan
vücuttan ibaretti, öyle mi?... Bu rahiya Nihal’in ruhunu güya buharlaştırarak emiyor gibiydi...
Artık Bihter’in o tebessümünün altında bütün ruhunun teslimiyeti bir tebessüm gülleri içinde
açıyor gibiydi,” Aşk-ı Memnû, 130.
68
“Nihal korkunç bir rüyadan çıkmış gibiydi,” Aşk-ı Memnû, 130.
69
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 10.
70
“[…] onunla beraber yaşamaya işte kuvvet bulamıyorum,” Aşk-ı Memnû, 182.
71
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 11.

23
do not see the two together. For this reason as soon as she finds out that her
father is at home, “sie schürzte die Lippen und wollte dieser duftenden
Atmosphäre, die sie trunken machte, erschauernd wie ein Vögelchen, das in
fremde Gefilde geraten war, entfliehen. Sie beeilte sich, als müsse sie sich vor
einem Lufthauch, der einen vergiften konnte, retten” (VL 120).72 Here, Nihal’s
admiration towards Bihter and her effort to hide it from her father are apparent.
As Girard claims, at this point, Nihal sees Bihter as nothing but an obstacle.
So far, I have elaborated on the model-disciple relationship as it displays
itself in Aşk-ı Memnu between Nihal and Bihter. However, the analysis was
limited to Nihal’s position. When the focus of interest is shifted from the
disciple to model, one sees that Bihter is well aware of her position; and like an
experienced master, she is educating her slave:73 Girard argues that the
secondary role of the mediator becomes primary as the disciple starts to imitate
him/her. Yet in Aşk-ı Memnu, we find that the mechanism of imitation is not
only roused due to Nihal’s desire, but also the fact that Bihter positions herself
as a model. In this respect, the relationship between the two is a mutual one, of a
complex nature, which, as will be explored later, is open to a shift in roles at any
time. Hence, Bihter too, assumes an active role in Nihal’s imitation of her,
which is also a part of her development from childhood into girlhood:

Nihal! Weißt du, jetzt ist die Zeit gekommen, wo wir das alles wegwerfen
sollten,” pointing out Nihal’s old clothes, “denn du bist nun kein kleines Kind
mehr, sondern ein junges Mädchen. Diese kurzen Röckchen sind vielleicht bis
zum zwölften Lebensjahr ganz nett. Aber man älter als zwölf ist… (VL,
118).74

I believe there are two important points here: first of all, Bihter is well aware of
Nihal’s desires and what she lacks. The idea of having a veil makes Nihal

72
“(Nihal) dudaklarını çeker; kendisini sarhoş eden muattar havadan, yabancı bir ufka düşmüş bir
kuş ürkmesiyle, kaçmak ister, güya bir zehirleyici rüzgardan kurtulmak için acele ederdi” Aşk-ı
Memnû, 143.
73
With the metaphor of master and slave, I am referring to Girard’s argument in Chapter IV in
Deceit, Desire and the Novel, which will be explored in greater detail in the later parts of this
study: See below, Part II, section C: Behlül.
74
“-Nihal! Bilir misin? Artık bunların hepsini atmak zamanı geliyor. Ben isterim ki sen küçük bir
çocuk değil genç kız olasın. Bu kısa etekler…Bunlar on ikisine kadar pek iyidir. Fakat on
ikisinden sonra …” Aşk-ı Memnû, 141.

24
extremely happy, for example, as it is an expression of the fact of her growing
up. It is with the fulfillment of such yearnings that Bihter makes Nihal like
herself; and in this way, hopes to rule over the mansion. If Nihal likes her, she
thinks, she can do whatever she likes in the mansion without facing rejection by
anyone. One should also remember that due to her mother’s death, Nihal lacks
the typical first model in her life. In this aspect too, Bihter fills a gap in her life;
yet as the novel develops this gap becomes even more vivid in Nihal’s life since
a stepmother like Bihter is actually never able to fulfill such a gap. Second of
all, from Nihal’s standpoint, going back to Girard, with her proposal of a veil,
Bihter prepares for Nihal the perfect conditions to imitate her—Bihter—as
model in a vein similar to Flaubert’s heroes who, in Girard’s terms, “find a
model for themselves and imitate from the person they have decided to be, all
that can be imitated, everything exterior gesture, intonation, and dress.”75 From
this point, too, one can see Bihter’s influence on Nihal: from short skirts that
symbolize childhood, Nihal moves into the veil, girlhood.
Uşaklıgil gives very elaborate descriptions of what the women wear in
Aşk-ı Memnu. From Nihal’s first veil to her dress she wears at a wedding; from
Bihter and Peyker’s clothes to Firdevs Hanım’s, each outfit is described in great
detail, rendering these descriptive passages worthy of analytic attention. The
changing appearance of Nihal, I argue, stands for how she gradually “becomes a
woman”—to use Simone de Beauvoir’s term.76 What is striking about this is that
she is not becoming just any woman, but a woman from Melih Bey’s Clan.
Through the influence of Bihter, by imitating her, Nihal physically becomes like
her mediator. Even though for different reasons,77 Nihal too, gradually starts to
pay attention to every detail of her clothes. Nihal’s development could be

75
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 5.
76
Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 287.
77
In the case of Melih Bey’s Clan, namely Firdevs Hanım and her daughters’ special care of
clothing is especially emphasized in the novel in order to point out their class and wish for upward
mobility through marriage. Their ability to make extraordinary dresses from inexpensive materials
purchased at middle-class stores also refers to their desire to hide their class since it is through
appearance that they try to look as if they belonged to a higher class. At the same time, it is those
details that emphasize Bihter’s desire to marry Adnan Bey. As his wife, she no more has to spend
as much effort to look good, since a marriage with Adnan Bey would enable her to buy anything
she likes.

25
differentiated as physical and mental; yet it is at both of these levels that she
gradually becomes like the other women of Melih Bey’s Clan. A good example
of Nihal’s change is her rising interest in a piece of jewelry. Nihal’s fascination
with Bihter’s expensive diamond set bought by Adnan Bey comes into being
only after Nihal has gone through some development, or change, since as a child
such material goods, which moreover also is an important symbol of
womanhood—would hardly be of interest to Nihal:

Bihter packte vor dem Spiegel einige Schmuckstücke aus […] Nihal trug nur
Ohrringe, die von kleinen weißen Perlen eingefasst waren und jeweils einen
kleinen Stein in der Mitte trugen. Wie lange schon hatte sie Bihter bitten
wollen, ihr die Smaragde einmal zu zeigen. Doch jedes Mal hatte sie die
Furcht, eifersüchtig zu erscheinen, davon abgehalten.Natürlich war sie
eifersüchtig, und das nicht nur wegen dieses Schmucks, sondern auch wegen
der kleinsten Dinge (VL 243).78

In the above paragraph, we see how her model arouses Nihal’s jealousy. Once
again, her jealousy is not directed towards the subject, her father, but rather to
what Bihter possesses. The reason why Nihal wants to own such jewelry, then,
is not because of the jewelry itself, but the combination of jealousy and
admiration they arouse in Nihal; her desire to be like her model. Later in the
novel, as Nihal tells her father about a wedding she has attended, she mentions
her fascination with the jewels worn by the women at the wedding, her father
responds that in order to get a set of jewelry similar to Bihter’s, one should, first
of all, become a bride (VL269).79 Here too, similar to Bihter’s idea of what a
twelve-year old girl should wear, this time by her father, the norms of femininity
are imposed on Nihal: marriage is her father’s prerequisite for having jewelry.
However, what is more important for the purpose of this study is Nihal’s idea of
marriage, which will change in the later chapters of the novel: “Die armen
Smaragde! Sie werden wohl lange warten müssen, bis sie zu der kleinen Nihal

78
Bihter ötede aynanın önünde mücevher takımlarını çıkarıyordu […] Nihal’in yalnız kulaklarında
etrafı mini mini incilerle ortasında tek birer küçük taştan ibaret bir küpesi vardı. Kaç kere onları
görmek için Bihter’den rica etmeye niyet etmiş idi. Her defasında da kıskanıyor görünmek
korkusu mani olurdu. Şüphesiz kıskanıyordu; yalnız bunları değil, en küçük şeyleri kıskanıyordu
ve bu, biçare ruhunu daimi işkenceler içinde ezerdi” Aşk-ı Memnû, 281.
79
Ibid., 310.

26
kommen dürfen” (VL 270).80 By this phrase, Nihal points out her rejection of
marriage. After the wedding she attends, she comes to understand that she does
not want to get married.
Why, later in the novel, then, does she accept Behlül’s marriage
proposal? The possible answer to this question also points at another aspect in
Nihal’s development “through a serious of experiences” as Moran argues.81 This
development, besides Nihal’s attitude towards marriage, shifts the model-
disciple roles between Bihter and Nihal. In order to better understand this, let us
take a look at the wedding chapter. For, it is through the occurences at the
wedding that one can explore changes in Nihal’s perception of Bihter and her
life as “Nihal war sich der Bedeutung dieser Hochzeit bis zu jenem Zeitpunkt
nicht in aller Deutlichkeit bewusst gewesen. Viele der bestehen
Zusammenhänge, die für sie bislang im Dunkeln geblieben waren, auch wenn
sie diese gefühlmäßig wahrgenommen hatte, waren mit einem Mal offen zu
Tage getreten” (VL 254).82 Each woman at the wedding whom she observes sets
a distinct example of womanhood. The scenes, the conversations, the
atmosphere of the wedding become a new experience for her. One should also
remember that until this day, Nihal had hardly had any exposure to outer life of
the mansion. It is notable that she has no friends on the outside. Mademoiselle
de Courton and Adnan Bey are the only two who teach her; Bülent, Beşir, the
maid, and the rest of the household help like Şakire Hanım, Nesrin and Cemile
are the only ones with whom Nihal has conversation and interaction. Hence,
Nihal’s knowledge of the world is limited to her conversations with those at the
mansion, the games she plays and the books, which Madame lets her read. That
is also why she is fascinated by everyone and everything she sees at the
wedding. One could equally claim that Nihal does not know how to
communicate with others outside the mansion. For example, during her
conversation with the bride, she does not know how to react to many of the

80
“Zavallı zümrüt takımı!...Küçük Nihal’ gelmek için daha çok bekleyecek” Aşk-ı Memnû, 310.
81
Moran, Türk Romanına Eleştirel Bir Bakış, 80
82
“Nihal için bu düğün o vakte kadar açıklıkla anlaşılamamış, yalnız hissedilerek müphem kalmış
birçok hakikatlerin birden açığa çıkması hükmünde olmuş idi” Aşk-ı Memnû, 294.

27
things the bride tells her; she neither understands the bride’s jokes nor her
questions about marriage; yet she realizes something: how much she hates
Bihter and Firdevs Hanım.
The wedding is crucial for another reason as well: It presents different
forms of womanhood, all of are indexed in the novel as based on imitation. Old,
young, rich, poor, all the women at the wedding try to follow the certain rules of
this ritual as they try to fit themselves in. Either by imitating a famous singer or
singing with a crowd, women behave in such a way that from what they do to
how they behave, from their appearance to their thoughts, everything is an
imitation of a female identity. In this respect, the wedding, where there are only
women, becomes something like a showplace for performing womanhood.
Through the events at the wedding, Uşaklıgil does not only bring about a
major experience in Nihal’s life but calls attention to the very role of imitation
and the relationship between the stepmother and daughter. Hence the wedding is
Nihal’s awakening, since it forces her to face her genuie feelings towards Bihter.
She no more hides her envy or hatred. She does not understand anything as
sophisticated as the Girardian notion of the origin of culture in victimization, but
she possibly intuits that behind Bihter’s pretty masquerade—here by
“masquerade” I refer to Bihter’s attempts to seem nice to Nihal as she continues
to play the role of a good and pretty stepmother which she has been playing
since her first day at the mansion—and behind the entire spectrum of
performances she has observed at the wedding, there lies nothing but hate.
After the wedding, Nihal repeatedly challenges venerable rules through
her hesitation and indecision through seeking new models or by seeking even no
models at all. Hence, unlike everyone else, including Bihter, Nihal decides that
she would not get married. However, her mental development builds up: her
dislike of Bihter makes her realize her fear of isolation. As her beloved ones
gradually leave the mansion, she now finds relief in Behlül. Hence, she derives
pleasure from Behlül’s interest in her.
Since Nihal does not know about Behlül and Bihter’s affair, we cannot
ascribe her decision to marry Behlül directly to a Girardian model of mediated

28
desire: the decision to marry does not comprise an attempt on her part to possess
what her rival desires. However, it is still because of the model-disciple
relationship that Nihal obtains Behlül’s attention: as Nihal imitates Bihter, she
looks more like a young girl than a child. In turn, Behlül no longer sees her as a
young cousin, but a potential lover: “Doch wer weiß? Vielleicht verbarg sich der
Sinn der Liebe, die Poesie des Lebens im reinen Herzen einer solchen noch
verschlossenen Knospe?” (VL 363).83 Why Behlül, during his affair with Bihter,
starts feeling this way towards Nihal will be explored more in the last section of
this part of the study.
At this point, the shift in the model-disciple structure requires some
elaboration: Since Bihter is aware of Behlül’s interest in Nihal and more
importantly of a possible engagement between the two, she now starts to
perceive Nihal as her model. For, now Nihal has what she desires: Behlül. As
the possibility of an engagement crystallizes, Bihter desires Behlül more than
ever for, “every desire redoubles when it is seen to be shared.”84 As Girard
claims “two identical but opposite triangles are superimposed on each other.”85
In Aşk-ı Memnu, too, there appears to be a further triangle, this time among
Bihter, the desiring subject, Nihal, the mediator and Behlül, the desired object.
What brings this triangle into realization is another model-disciple relationship,
that between Firdevs Hanım and Bihter. Seeing her daughter as a potential rival,
it is by the initiative of Firdevs Hanım that the idea of Behlül and Nihal’s
engagement comes into existence. Girard’s theoretical commentary proves
particularly relevant at this junction:

We now have a subject-mediator and a mediator-subject, a model-disciple and

a disciple-model. Each imitates the other while claiming that his own desire is
prior and previous. Each looks on the other as an atrociously cruel persecutor.
All relationships are symmetrical; the two partners believe themselves
separated by a bottomless abyss but there is nothing we can say of one which
is not equally true of the other. There is a sterile opposition of contraries,

83
“Kim bilir? Belki, sevdanın ruhu, hayatın şiiri, böyle henüz açılmamış bir goncanın saf
sinesinde gizliydi” Aşk-ı Memnû, 411.
84
Girard, Deceit, Desire and The Novel, 99.
85
Ibid.

29
 which becomes more and more atrocious and empty as the two subjects
approach each other and their desires intensifies.86

Towards the end of Aşk-ı Memnu, the Girardian scheme of the triangle, or rather
the combination of such triangles among Firdevs Hanım, Bihter, and Adnan
Bey; Adnan Bey, Bihter and Nihal; Behlül, Bihter and Nihal; and Firdevs
Hanım, Bihter and Behlül eventually bring Nihal into the latest phase of her
development. If Aşk-ı Memnu may be considered as a female Bildungsroman by
Baruch’s definition, by the end of the novel, too, we see the idea of marriage as
a crucial component of Nihal’s mental development. For this, Baruch is right in
her claim that “the feminine Bildungsroman takes place in or on the periphery of
marriage.”87 Nihal’s Bildungsroman takes place exclusively on the periphery of
marriage since it can never be realized, at least not with Behlül. Even though
their reasons for marriage and desiring the same man are completely different,
Nihal and Bihter are not so different from each other; nor are their desires.
Although Nihal tries to resist the lure of imitation, she fails.
Moreover, as it will be further discussed in the next section, we see that
towards the end of the novel, Bihter comes to desire Behlül more than before;
and so does Nihal. This rapid increase in both characters’ respective desire
emphasizes the nature of desire once again for, “desire circulates between the
two rivals more and more quickly, and with every circle it increases its intensity
like the electronic current in a battery which is being charged.”88 But all of this
crystallizes only at the very end of the novel: Out of a total of five hundred
fourteen pages, from Nihal’s acceptance of Behlül’s marriage proposal to
Bihter’s confession, from Nihal’s realization of Bihter and Behlül’s affair to
Bihter’s suicide, everything happens in the last thirty pages; in the last two
chapters.89 However, these thirty pages, maybe more than the rest of the novel,
reflect Girard’s theory in two different ways. First of these is related with desire.
Girard argues that:

86
Ibid., 99-100.
87
Baruch, Women, Love and Power, 122.
88
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 99.
89
Page numbers may vary depending on the publication.

30
 When the two rivals are very close to each other, double mediation ends in
double fascination. Askesis for the sake of desire becomes involuntary and
causes paralysis. The two partners are faced with very similar possibilities;
they thwart each other so successfully that neither of them is able to approach
the object. They remain opposite each other, immobilized in an opposition
that absorbs them totally.90

In the end of Aşk-ı Memnu, it is possible to see how this double fascination
comes into existence. It is the first time in the novel that each character who
contributes to the constitution of the triangle is aware of his or her relationship
to the others. In other words, at the very moment that Nihal has just discovered
that Behlül has been having an affair with Behlül, Bihter realizes that Behlül
wants to be with Nihal and not her; and Behlül, hearing Beşir, finds out that
Nihal has come back from the island and that she knows of his affair with
Bihter. It is also the first time that these three are at the same place together after
all is revealed. Hence, the two rivals, Bihter and Nihal, are very close to each
other, spatially; yet more distant than ever before. “The two partners are faced
with very similar possibilities; they thwart each other so successfully that neither
of them is able to approach the object.”91 Hence while Nihal faints and it is at
this moment that Behlül’s feelings toward her arrive at their peak, Bihter goes
into her room and commits suicide. It is Bihter’s effort to keep Behlül away
from Nihal that by revealing the truth to her mother, she, at the same time,
leaves behind her possibility of possessing him for she knows that after this
moment nothing will be the same. This is also a perfect time to avenge herself of
her mother. Simultaneously, Nihal returns to the mansion from the island for
two reasons: one is to keep Behlül away from Bihter while the one is to face her
father and take her revenge from him as everything is revealed. It is only in this
way that her jealousy towards Bihter, her mediator, and envy can be suppressed.
Just before the very end of the novel, as Girard argues, both Bihter and Nihal are

90
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 172 –italics added.
91
Ibid.

31
“immobilized in an opposition that absorbs that totally”92 until Bihter takes an
action and kills herself.
Reading the ending from Nihal’s point of view reveals the second feature
of Girard’s theory; this time with relevance to novelistic conclusions and not
desire per se:

All novelistic conclusions are conversions; it is impossible to doubt this. But

can one go further? Can one maintain that all these conversions have the same
meaning? Two fundamental categories seem to be distinguishable from the
outset: those conclusions which portray a solitary hero who rejoins other men
and those which portray a ‘gregarious’ hero gaining solitude.93

The conclusion of Aşk-ı Memnu fits into the first category where Girard places
Dostoyevsky’s novels since Nihal is no more the solitary hero. Even if not with
Behlül, she rejoins with others: Mademoiselle de Courton would soon be back
from France, the maid Şakire Hanım and her husband would spend their elderly
years in the mansion with them; Bülent would no more spend his nights at the
school as a boarding student; and most importantly, the conclusion celebrates
Nihal’s reunification with her father: “Seite and Seite, stets gemeinsam, im
Leben und im Sterben” (VL 457).94 Now, doesn’t this remind us of something?
Doesn’t this conclusion take us back to where we were in the beginning? After
all is lived and gone, Nihal goes back to her childhood. She once again becomes
Adnan Bey’s vulnerable daughter. Nihal escapes from desire and death by the
artifice of memory. In the end she rejects mimesis and continues living in the
secure territory of the mansion. As Girard claims, “the conclusion is always a
memory.”95 Moreover, “every novelistic conclusion is a beginning.”96 Hence,
Aşk-ı Memnu, too, becomes a Past Recaptured for “every novelistic conclusion
is a Past Recaptured”. Let us conclude this part of the study with a question:
may Aşk-ı Memnu be still considered as a feminine Bildungsroman, if after all,

92
Ibid.
93
Ibid., 292.
94
“-Beraber, hep beraber, yaşarken ve ölürken...” Aşk-ı Memnû, 514.
95
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 297.
96
Ibid.

32
the conclusion of Nihal’s story is nothing but a “revivification of the past”?97 I
will try to give an answer to this question later in my analysis. For now, I would
like to claim that on one hand Bihter helps Nihal realize her womanhood and on
the other hand, she becomes an obstacle against it. Nihal’s realization of her
womanhood would materialize through her union with Behlül. However, Bihter
either as live or dead, does not let this union to occur. However Nihal survives
Bihter in the novel and it is her very survival that centrializes her as a character
as much as Bihter.

B. Bihter

The aim of this part is to explore the conditions that lead Bihter to an
adulterous affair with Behlül and her tragic suicide. In order to understand why
she commits adultery and chooses to take her own life, I, first of all, start with
her pre-marital days, from when the novel begins. And then I move into Bihter’s
marriage with Adnan Bey and see for what reasons she starts an affair with
younger Behlül. Such an analysis is not only helpful to realize the tragic ending
of the novel, but also see the connections among the characters, most
importantly female ones.
It seems to me that majority of the female characters in Aşk-ı Memnu,
their individual stories as well as relationships point out the dynamics that
determine the norms in each society. In Aşk-ı Memnu, such an emphasis of
(female desire for) marriage could be understood in parallel to (female desire
for) authority. Marriage, in this sense, is not about mutual love of the two
partners; or it does not “bring harmonious alignment patterns of passion,” but as
Tanner further claims, it is “the all-subsuming, all-organizing, all-containing
contract.”98 Considering this definition of marriage, one can then claim that it is
the smallest institution where authority is rooted in each society. When I use the
term ‘authority’ what I have in mind is Marx Horkheimer’s definition, which I
believe corresponds to Girard’s theory of mimetic desire for it helps us

97
Ibid.
98
Tanner, Adultery in the Novel, 15.

33
understand why and whom one tends to imitate from a larger scope of society
rather than an individual:

Amid all the radical differences between human types from different periods
of history, all have in common that their essential characteristics are
determined by the power-relationships proper to society at any given time.
People have more than a hundred years abondened the view that character is
to be explained in terms of the completely isolated individual, and they now
regard man as at every point a socialized being. But this also means that
men’s drives and passions, their characteristic dispositions and reaction-
patterns are stamped by the power-relationships under which the social-life
process unfolds at any time. The class system within which the individual’s
outward life runs its course is reflected not only on his mind, his ideas, his
basic concepts and judgments but also in his inmost life, in his preferences
and desires. Authority is therefore a central category for history.99

What is striking in Horkheimer’s claim about authority is its influence on

individuals including the private sphere of their lives. Hence, it underlines a
Girardian theory of desire, and at the same time, explains what it is that one
chooses a model for; and according to whom and what some become models or
disciples of each other. Girard himself claims that

we must above all remember that the characters of Cervantes and Flaubert are
imitating, or believe they are imitating, the desires of models they have freely
chosen [...] Mathilde de la Mole finds her models in the history of her family;
Julien Sorel imitates Napoleon [...] The Prince of Parma imitates Louis XIV.
The young Bishop of Agde practices the benediction in front of a mirror; he
mimics the old and venerable prelates whom he fears he does not sufficiently
resemble.100

In all of Girard’ examples above what seems to be at stake is, I believe, the
relationship between each character’s desire and the authoritative system of their
respected societies either on public or private sphere. Hence, “here history is
nothing but a kind of literature; it suggests to all Stendhal’s characters feelings,
and, especially, desires that they do not desire spontenously.”101 If we elaborate
more on Girard’ theory, we see that choosing of a model is never free from
authority; so is the metaphysical desire. Either it is one’s desire to fit into

99
Max Horkheimer, “Authority and Family” quoted by Tanner in Adultery, 372.
100
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 5.
101
Ibid.

34
authority or the struggle to stand against it that the model is chosen for. Let me
explain what I mean by this before moving into Bihter’s story starting from her
marriage.
Let’s think about Firdevs Hanım for example. One of the reasons that
make her an anti-hero in the novel may be her resistance to authority. What I
mean by authority here is the norms of a society that determine the role of a
woman. Instead of desiring to be a good mother or a grandmother, what Firdevs
Hanım desires is youth and beauty. As Selim Ileri claims, “she is in love with
eternal femininity.”102 This is especially the case when her daughters get older
and when Firdevs Hanım starts to see her younger and beautiful daughters,
Peyker and Bihter, as her enemies. The two become her Girardian models whom
she imitates by her appearance including her dyed hair and clothes:

Die Töchter, die immer jünger aussahen und immer schöner wurden, standen
in deutlichem Gegensatz zu ihrer Mutter und hatten ihr gegenüber eine
ausgesprochen spöttische Haltung eingenommen. Das Verhältnis der drei
Frauen untereinander was ohnehin nie so herzlich gewesen, wie man es für
eine Mutter und ihre Kinder erwarten würde, vielmehr war es stets von
Rivalität geprägt (VL 23).103

Ironically her obsession with beauty and youth are one of the reasons why
Firdevs Hanım becomes an anti-model for Bihter in a traditional sense (here I
use the term ‘model’ as a mother being a model for her daughter;) yet a model in
a Girardian sense. Since I have elaborated on a similar model-disciple
relationship between Bihter and Nihal in the previous part of the study, I will not
explain how Girardian model-disciple scheme is applied to Firdevs Hanım and
Bihter. However, one should be aware that just like the dynamics between Nihal
and Bihter, the relationship between the mother and the daughter changes
throughout the novel: First, Bihter plays the role of a model as her beauty and

102
İleri, Kamelyasız Kadınlar, 159.
103
“Yanı başında gittikçe gençleşen, güzelleşen bu kızlar onun için belirgin bir itiraz, somut bir
istihza hükmüne giriyor, zaten hiç bir zaman aralarında valideliği çocuklarına bağlayan duygularla
açılamayan bu üç kadının münasebeti bir rekabet münasebetinden harice çıkmıyordu,” Aşk-ı
Memnû, 36.

35
youth turns Firdevs Hanım into her disciple creating her mimetic desire even
though it is not a sexual one; later it shifts into Firdevs Hanım, being Bihter’s
model, her rival as Behlül becomes the – even more – desired object when she
arranges Nihal and Behlül’s engagement and this way taking her ultimate
revenge from her daughter, Bihter. Yet, at this point, what is more useful is,
instead of applying the Girardian dialectic of model-disciple and exploring the
oppositions, to look at the parallels between the two characters.
The most crucial of these parallels is their marriage followed by adultery.
What Firdevs Hanım did in her younger years to her husband although it is not
explained explicitly in the novel is precisely what Bihter does to Adnan Bey in
her marriage: Initially both of them want to get married and soon enough realize
that marriage does not provide their expectations. In turn, by committing
adultery, they seek those expectations else where. Hence, both the mother and
the daughter fall into the margins of authority through adultery because of their
very desire of following it through marriage. As Elaine Hoffman Baruch argues
“in the Pamela tradition [...] the heroine seeks upward mobility in marriage.104
And this claim is also applicable for Firdevs Hanım and Bihter. Even though the
two get married with the hope of having a better future, soon enough they both
get disappointed. Let’s take a look at the lines which describe Firdevs Hanım’s
disappointment and later Bihter’s in order to see the striking similarity of how
Uşaklıgil presents the mother and daughter’s idea of marriage: (This is, of
course, their idea of marriage only after they got married since previously they,
especially Bihter, had a different idea, which will be explored later in this part.)

Firdevs Hanım war bei ihrer Eheschließung betrogen worden. Die Hochzeit
hatte ihr nichts von den Annehmlickeiten gebracht, die sie erwartet hatte.
Oder aber es war bloß ein Bruchteil dessen, sodass sie für den Mann, der sie
um ihre Illusionen betrogen hatte, nur noch Feindschaft empfand. Die Heirat
spendete ihr nicht einmal den Trost, dass durch diese Ehe die Wünsche, die
sie als naives junges Mädchen hegte, in Erfüllung gegangen waren (VL 12).105

104
Baruch, Women, Love and Power, 122.
105
“[...] Bu izdivaçta Firdevs Hanım aldanmış idi: İzdivaç ona beklediği şeylerden hiçbirini
getirmiyordu, yahut bunlardan o kadar az bir hisse getiriyordu ki birden kendisini hülyalarında
aldatmış olan bu adama düşmanlık etti. Bu izdivaç ona saf bir genç kız emelini tatmin etmiş olmak
teslimiyetini bile vermiyordu,” Aşk-ı Memnû, 25.

36
Having married at the age of eighteen, Firdevs Hanım is not disappointed only
because her marriage could not provide her a more prosperous life, if not better,
also she regrets that she did not make a love marriage.106 Later in the novel,
Bihter, too, realizes what her mother discovered in her marriage:

Das hieß, diese Ehe, die sie sich so sehr gewünscht hatte, für deren
Verwirklichung sie alles getan hatte, war eine einzige dunkle Nacht. Von den
schönen Vorstellungen, die diese Ehe so ideal hatten erscheinen lassen,, von
all den Juwelen, Stoffen und Kostarkeiten, die über ihrem Jungmädchenbett
wie ein Regenbogen geleuchtet hatten, war nur eine Hand voll Asche übrig
geblieben, die in der Dunkelheit dieses Zimmers verstreut lag (VL 175).107

A year later, Bihter, too faces her disappointment in marriage. And, like her
mother, she seeks happiness outside her marriage. As Tony Tanner argues: “the
marriage produces the image of what it is not, it is the negative to the positive
fantasy, and only later will the image attach itself to a man. In their origin of
adultery and adulterous desires are thus endo-marital rather than exo-marital”.108
Tanner’s argument is crucial to see why these two characters of Aşk-ı Memnu or
other female characters of literature like Emma and Anna Karenina commit
adultery. Thinking about the position of women in the nineteenth century or at
the turn of the twentieth century, it was marriage that determined women’s
social, economic and geographic future.109 One should then evaluate the
adulterous female of the novel of that period with this idea on mind. Only then
we can understand why marriage had such associations; and why in the inmost
life, in her preferences and desires of women, marriage had a crucial part. Not
only in the Ottoman Empire but in many other places then it was ironically the
authority that gave birth to adultery which is rooted in [bourgoise] marriages of
the period, when women sought and could only achieve upward mobility

106
Aşk-ı Memnû, 25; VL, 12.
107
“Demek bu izdivaç, o kadar arzu edilen, tahakkuna o kadar çalışlan bu izdivaç, işte şu karanlık
şeyden ibaretti. Şimdi bu izdivacın meziyetlerini teşki eden şeyler, o genç kızlık yatağının üerinde
bir gökkuşağı açan mücevherler, kumaşlar, ziynetler hep bir avuç hulya külleri şeklinde odanın
karanlıklarına serpiliyor, dağılıyordu” Aşk-ı Memnû, 206.
108
Tony Tanner, Adultery in the Novel, 295.
109
Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1957, 139.

37
through their husbands. I am aware that my claims here rather historical. Yet, for
my further discussion on the social construction of desire in relation to Girard’s
idea of metaphysical desire, it is worth to mention these comments here. In the
next part, where Aşk-ı Memnu and Madame Bovary are compared, I will explore
Girard’s psycho-intellectual dynamics of the idea of marriage and its
implications with regards to this subject.
The parallel between Firdevs Hanım and Bihter, the paradigm of
womanhood that they represent could be also discussed within the light of
Butler’s claim that “the action of gender requires performance that is repeated.
This repetition is at once a reenactment and reexperiencing of a set of meanings
already socially established; and it is the mundane and ritualized form of their
legitimation.”110 Here, too, we see the notion of authority. Not only Firdevs
Hanım and Bihter, but also other female characters in the novel, including those
in the wedding chapter, show a performance which has been repeated many
times as they reexperience a set of meanings that are socially established. Think
about the bride, for instance: She is sent to Kalpakçılar with a matchmaker by
her mother in order to find a husband. The widow matchmaker “war die
Glücksfee aller Mädchen, die Braut warden, und für alle jungen Männer, die
heiraten wollten. Man konnte davon ausgehen, dass sie immer eine Reihe von
Bildern und Notizen bei sich trug” (VL 258).111 In a similar vein, Firdevs Hanım
and Bihter look for their prospective husbands during their leisurely visits to
Göksu. Moreover, the possible marriage of Nihal and Behlül is a reenactment
and reexperience since cousin marriages at the time was a common practice.
Going back to Firdevs Hanım and Bihter, they both commit adultery as they try
to perform what is expected from their gender by marriage.
Peyker is another important character since as part of Melih Bey’s Clan,
she is not too different from Firdevs Hanim or Bihter regarding her appearance,
i.e. clothes and her desires, i.e. money and marriage, yet she is different from

110
Butler, Gender Trouble,140-141.
111
“İstanbul’da onu tanımayan hemen hemen kimse bulunamazdı. Bütün gelin olacak kızlarla
evlendirilecek gençlerin bir hayır işler perisi olan bu kadına daima koynun birkaç resimle, birkaç
pusula ile tesadüf olunurdu” Aşk-ı Memnû, 297-298.

38
them when it comes to her decision for marriage: Unlike the other two, Peyker
marries for love. In the beginning of the novel, Bihter looks down on Peyker’s
marriage until she realizes that Peyker has what Bihter herself is missing in her
marriage: love. Aside from this reason which Bihter realizes only towards the
end of the novel, Bihter’s relationship with Peyker fits into Girardian model-
disciple scheme for two reasons: Ironically first one of these is Bihter’s desire to
get married and secondly her desire to commit adultery. Seeing her mother as an
anti-model, as a threat who would hinder Bihter’s possibilities of marriage,
Bihter is jeaolus of Peyker because everyone believes that Peyker is more like
their father, whereas Bihter is like their mother. Here I would like to give a
quotation from a rather long passage, but I believe it is useful to understand the
relationship among the mother and the two sisters:

Während sie noch bei sich selbst schwor, dass sie nicht ihrer Mutter gleichen
wollte, fiel ihr etwas anderes ein. Seit ihrer Kindheit sagte man, Peyker
komme mehr auf ihren Vater heraus, Bihter dagegen auf ihre Mutter. Da sich
alle darin einig waren, ähnelte sie offenbar wirklich ihrer Mutter. Sie fürchtete
sich von dieser Ähnlichkeit. Ein Gefühl in ihrem Herzen wollte sie davon
überzeugen, dass ihre körperliche Ähnlichkeit sie auch in vergleichbare
Lebensbahnen lenken würde. Das ließ sie erzittern. Sie wollte mehr wie ihr
Vater. So wie Peyker [...] Mit Erzählungen, die sie zufällig gehört hatte, mit
Einzelheiten, die sie sich Stück für Stück beschafft hatte, erfand sie einen
Lebenslauf für ihren Vater. Später lebte er in ihren Gedanken unter der Knute
von Firdevs Hanım, die ihn quälte. Mit ihrer Vorstellung von einem
ahnungslosen, ehrenhaften Eheman verlieh sie dem Eheleben ihres Vaters
einen tragischen Anstrich. Am Ende tötete ihre Mutter ihn, der schon
vernichtend geschlagen war, mit einem heftigen Schlag [...] Und sie war
geradezu eifersüchtig auf Peyker, weil die ihrem Vater ählich war (VL 179-
180).112

This passage seems to point out to Bihter’s “psychological circle.”113 Girard

claims that the closer the mediator is, the higher one’s obsession becomes.

112
“Kendi kendisine, içinden, annesine benzememek için yemin ederken aklına başka birşey
geliyordu. Ta küçüklüklerinden beri Peyker’e babasına benzer, Bihter için annesine çekmiş
derlerdi. Mademki bunu söylemekte herkes birleşikti, demek hakikatte o annesine benziyordu. Bu
benzerlikten korkardı. Kalbinde birşey vardı ki cismani müşabehetin hayatlarını da benzeteceğini
zannettirir ve onu titretirdi. O da babasına benzemeliydi. Peyker gibi [...] Tesadüfle işitilmiş
şeylerden parça parça tedarik olunmuş tafsilattan babasına bir öz geçmiş icat ediyor, sonra onu
Firdevs Hanım’ın elinde işkenceler içinde yaşatıyor, her şeyden habersiz namuslu bir koca rengi
veriyor, nihayet onu müthiş bir darbe ile, kahrolmuş öldürüyordu [...] Peyker’i babasına benzemiş
olmaktan adeta kıskanıyordu” Aşk-ı Memnû, 210-211.
113
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 74. Here Girard argues that “the space of desire is

39
Moreover, according to Girard, “the law of the psychological circle is basic. It is
found in all the novelists of imitative desire. Among the brothers Karamazov,
Ivan is most like his father and Alyosha least. It is Ivan who hates most and
Alyosha who hates least.”114 I believe Bihter’s hatred towards her mother and
jealousy of her sister could be read along Girard’s lines. Therefore, her
psychological circle reveals “Einsteinian” space of the novel. Furthermore, her
hatred towards her mother and jealousy of her sister, aside from her dream of a
richer life, are the reasons why Bihter is so willing to get married with Adnan
Bey. In her attempt to be unlike her mother, Bihter models herself completely
after a culture that locates female identity in her virtue, and she develops an
obsession with the chastity required of her gender: She is angry at her mother
about what she had done to her father; she is disappointed in herself for causing
everyone to think she is more like her mother, whereas Peyker is more like her
father. Then chastity becomes even more important because she feels obliged to
be different from her mother. By becoming a good wife and a good
(step)mother, in the beginning of her marriage Bihter tries to act or think like a
disciple of this order. As she moves into Adnan Bey’s mansion, she thinks that
she can finally live up to feminine expectations, which turn out to be rather
illusionary as she discovers at a later stage.
A year after her marriage, it is Peyker that makes Bihter realize that her
marriage has been nothing but a disappointment. As Bihter witnesses the
flirtatious moments of Peyker and Behlül at the picnic, she becomes aware of
what she lacks in her life: (erotic) love. Hence another Girardian triangle
appears at the picnic among Peyker, Behlül and Bihter. Ironically, Bihter wants
to possess what Peyker has in her marriage, i.e. a husband whom she could love,
but also outside her marriage she is jealous of the close attention she gets from
Behlül; this is the first time Behlül gets Bihter’s attention. Hence, “in the birth of

‘Euclidian.’ We always think we move in a straight line toward the object of our desires and hates.
Novelistic space is ‘Einsteinian.’ The novelist shows us that the straight line is in reality a circle
which inevitably turns us back on ourselves.” The revelation of the novelistic space in Girard’s
argument is in the hero’s psychological circle.
114
Ibid.

40
desire, the third person is always present.”115 At the picnic Bihter does not only
realize what she is longing for, but she also finds an object in order to possess it.
Her realizations of what she longs for are determined by the image of others’
longing. Her desire thus is deployed through a string of desiring others in whose
place she would rather be. In this sense, Bihter is an identityless animal, like
Emma. Here we see how the model functions in two opposite ways: in the
beginning Peyker provides Bihter the virtue of marriage and later the key to her
adulterous affair. Girard claims that “Emma Bovary would not have taken
Rudolph for a Prince Charming had she not been imitating romantic
heroines.”116 Would Bihter have taken Behlül as a Prince Charming if she had
not been imitating Peyker? Probably yes, but definetely not so soon. Behlül
would be Bihter’s Prince Charming even if Peyker had not become her
mediator. For, her frustration in her marriage would continue, and being
sexually frustrated, Bihter would eventually become aware of Behlül. Another
reason for this is because unlike Emma, Bihter would not have any other option
than Behlül, which is related with the spatial difference of the novels. (This will
be explored more in depth in the comparison part). However, I argue that
witnessing this erotic scene between her sister and Behlül accelerates Bihter’s
awareness of her dissatisfaction. For, it is in this way that she realizes what she
lacks in her life.
After the picnic, soon after Bihter faces with the disappointment of her
marriage, she, for the first time, looks at her naked self in the mirror:

In dem diffusen Licht ihres Zimmers, das an ein Feenland erinnerte, sah sie,
weit entfernt am zerfließenden Grund einer grüner Höhle, die tiefer und tiefer
wurde, Bihter, die sich ihr wie ein verschwommenes Trugbild näherte. Sie sah
die Bihter, die dieser Spiegel zeigte: das Bild einer Frau, das mit weisser
Farbe auf mattes Silber gemalt war. Man hätte sie für eine Wolke halten
können, die aus ihrem feinen Seidenhemd schlüfen und wegfliegen wollte.
Niemand konnte erraten, aus welcher Empfindung heraus diese Körper, den
sie vor sich in seinem dünnen Hemdchen zittern sah, nackt, ganz nackt sehen
wollte. Sie löste die Bänder an den Schultern, und das Hemd glitt- nach
kurzem zögerndem Halt an ihrer Brust und Hüfte- zu Boden. Sie fasste nervös

115
Girard, Deceit,Desire and the Novel, 21.
116
Ibid, 18.

41
 ihre langen schwarzen Haare, drehte sie zusammen und hob sie hoch, sodas
sie nichts von ihrer Nacktheit verdeckten. Sie steckte die Haare auf ihrem
Kopf in einem unordentlichen Knoten fest. Und so, splitternackt, betrachtete
sie sich (VL 181-182).117

Just after the picnic, Bihter goes to her room and away from everyone she looks
into her mirror. In this erotic scene as she romanticizes her body, she discovers
herself by looking into the mirror. Bihter’s searching for herself in such a
manner could be understood in connection with Lacan’s “mirror stage”.118 The
naked reflection in the mirror, scraped from all the clothes and jewelry,
everything that constituted herself prior to that night including her desires,
makes her realize her body in its totality; from now on she can no longer fill the
gaps of desire with her clothes and jewelry. I believe this kind of a self-
encounter of the reflected image of self could be read in two possible ways. First
of all, the image she stares at in the mirror makes her aware of her femininity,
which she has not been aware of until that night. Bihter’s growth in female
consciousness in this respect is not cultural but biological. Right after the picnic,
where she discovers what she lacks in her life, she now looks at herself with
admiration:

Bihter stand regungslos da und scheute sich, auch nur durch die kleinste
Bewegung dieses schemenhafte Bild zu zerstören, das sie wie den Körper
einer anderen betrachet hatte. Würde sie Hände und Lippen ausstrecken, um
es anzufassen und zu umarmen, so würden sie beide auf der Stelle sterben. Im
Fieber eines leidenschaftlichen Kusses würden sie beide ihr Leben
aushauchen, dessen was sie sicher. Doch es verlangte sie nach einem solchen
Tod, sie wollte im Fieber der Vereinigung sterben, das ihre Seele erschütterte
(VL 183).119

117
“Bihter karanlık bir rüyadan renkli bir rüyaya çıkmış gibiydi. Bu perilere mahsus bir alemi
hatırlatan odasının belirsiz ziyaları arasında ta ötede, uzakta sanki tabaka tabaka derinleşen bir
yeşil mağaranın kaybolmuş ufuklarında, kendisine titrek bir hayal şekliyle yaklaşıyor görünen
Bihter’i, o aynanın Bihter’ini gördü; donuk bir gümüş levhaya yalnız beyazla çizilmiş bir kadın ki
ince beyaz gömleğinin içinden sıyrılarak uçacak, bir bulut olacak zannedilirdi. Bilinemez nasıl bir
hisle, karşısında bu ince gömleğin içinde titriyor görünen vücudu çıplak, tamamıyla çıplak görmek
istedi; omuzlarından kurdeleleri çözdü, gömlek kayarak göğsünün üstünde, belinde ufak bir
tereddütten sonra ayaklarının dibine düştü. Uzun siyah saçlarını ellerinin asabi darbeleriyle tuttu,
kıvırdı, bunların tam çıplaklığına eksiklik vermesini istemeyerek kaldırdı, ta başının üstüne,
perişan bir küme şeklinde tutturdu. Böyle, büsbütün çıplak, kendisine baktı” Aşk-ı Memnû, 212-
213.
118
For more on “mirror stage,” see Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection.
119
“Bihter şimdi kendisinden başka bir vücut hükmüyle seyrettiği bu hayali ufak bir hareketiyle

42
Here the mirror functions as a mediator for Bihter since she perceives her
reflection in the mirror as the Other. Her fascination with her own reflection
then underlines her need for desire even more120. As Lacan argues, “nowhere
does it appear more clearly that man’s desire finds its meaning in the desire of
the other, not because the other holds the key to the object desired, as because
the first object of desire is to be recognized by the other.”121 However, at this
point, aside from the need for desire, Bihter does not have any desired object
that she can try to possess. Her admiration towards herself in the mirror also
points out her narcissist self since “the lover who cannot find the object that
satisfies his or her narcissism is perhaps even more narcissistic than the one who
can.”122
Following the picnic where she sees Behlül flirting with Peyker, Bihter,
first of all, goes through this phase of self-encounter and realization of her
desire, and then she goes into Behlül’s bedroom, where their adulterous affair
starts. At this point, she has finally found an object towards whom she can direct
her desire. However, as Girard claims “the birth of passion coincides with the
birth of hate.”123 In Bihter’s case, it is not merely hate towards her object but
also towards herself: “Sie fand Behlül heute wiederwärtig, und von diesem
Mann besessen worden zu sein, erweckte bei ihr Abscheu gegen sich selbst” (VL
230).124Bihter blames Behlül for turning her into an adulteress since the
beginning of their affair also means that Bihter, unlike her sister Peyker, is no

kaçırmaktan çekinerek hareket etmeden duruyor, onu tutmak, ona sarılmak için ellerini,
dudaklarını uzatacak olursa ikisi birden orada ölüverecekler, delice bir busenin hummaları
arasında can verecekler zannediyordu. Lakin onun böyle, ruhu sarsan bir ulaşma humması içinde
ölmeye, can vermeye ihtiyacı vardı” Aşk-ı Memnû, 214-215.
120
Here I use the terms need and desire on purpose even though I am aware that “desire is the
crucial mediation point between need and demand” Tanner, Adultery, 93. Lacan argues that
“desire is born from the split between need and demand” Jean LaPlanche and J.-B. Pontalis,
Vocabulaire de la Psychanalyse, Paris: PUF, 1977, quoted by Tanner, “The Whence of Desire” in
Adultery in the Novel, 93.
121
Jacques Lacan, “The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious,” 135-136, as it is quoted by
Tanner in Adultery in the Novel, 92.
122
Baruch, Women, Love and Power, 90.
123
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 40.
124
“Bugün Behlül onun üzerinde iğrenç bir adam tesirini husule geliyordu ve bu adam tarafından
temellük edilmiş olmak onu kendisinden de iğrendiriyordu” Aşk-ı Memnû, 267.

43
more a faithful wife.125 She then does not only feel defeated against her sister,
but by being more like her mother, she also feels defeated against her.
As the disciple of desire, Bihter conceals her transgression, i.e. adultery,
by miming allegiance to the expectations of her environment. She continues to
act like a well-behaved, proper housewife and a good stepmother as if gender
were just a role to be performed for an audience. That is why after she
determines Behlül as the object of her desire, she can more easily give herself to
Adnan Bey. Only when she is all by herself in her bedroom, she is left alone
with her fantasies.
However, being aware of the fact that she does not love Behlül, Bihter
tries to make herself fall in love with him. Love, she thinks, is the only possible
way to legitimize her adulterous affair. Therefore, she creates numerous
mediators whom she can compete with. It is for this reason that she asks Behlül
about his previous affairs and keeps silent when she sees the pictures of naked
women in Behlül’s room. For, she thinks that she has won against each one of
these women. I believe it is this sexual pride that gradually increases Bihter’s
feelings for Behlül. How this affects Behlül’s feelings towards Bihter is another
side of the triangle, which will be the subject of the next part. She constantly has
to multiply her mediators only until Nihal appears as one of her mediators. Nihal
becomes Bihter’s internal mediator. This is a kind a mediation, “which turns the
mediator into a loathed rival.”126 In the previous part I have explained how the
model-disciple relationship shifts, as Nihal becomes a real threat for Bihter.
Having to listen the jokes about the possible engagement of Behlül and Nihal
and having to witness Behlül’s decreasing interest towards herself, by the end of
the novel, Nihal takes a crucial role in Bihter’s tragic suicide. For now, Nihal is
her loathed rival.
The end of the novel, I believe, is not really about what Bihter feels
towards Behlül, but what she feels towards her mediator(s), including Firdevs

125
In his analysis of Aşk-ı Memnu, Selim İleri argues that Peyker replies quietly positively to
Behlül’s flirtatious behavior; however she does not go too far to commit adultery. More on this
issue, see İleri, Kamelyasız Kadınlar, 188-189.
126
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 44. For the definition of internal mediation, see 9.

44
Hanım and Peyker, but most importantly Nihal. When everything is revealed,
Nihal and Bihter’s previous pleasure degenerates into a double form of
acquisitive mimesis; the desire that leads “two or more individuals to converge
on one and the same object with a view to appropriating it.”127 Each views the
other as the mediator who possesses the object of desire; each wants what the
other one has. And as Girard claims such double mediation often causes death.
In this respect, I think Bihter’s suicide is tragic, more tragic than Emma’s as I
will explain later. For now, let me say that her suicide depicts how mimetic
desire gravitates ultimately towards death.

C. Behlül

Behlül is one of the most important characters in Aşk-ı Memnu for two
main reasons: it is through him that Nihal and Bihter’s stories connect to each
other. Moreover, he has a major role in Bihter’s suicide as has been elaborated
above, in the previous section. So far, I have shown the nature of triangular
desire, the role of imitation and the relationship between model and disciple as
revealed in Aşk-ı Memnu. Admiration and hatred towards the mediator — this
paradoxical combination — leads the desiring subject towards constant rivalry
with the mediator. One may ask, however, what happens if a rival does not
exist? We know, for example, that in Aşk-ı Memnu, Behlül does not see Adnan
Bey as his rival. It is not Behlül’s admiration of Adnan Bey or his jealousy of
him that forces Behlül to have an affair with Bihter. What happens then if we
read the same story of the adulterous relationship between Bihter and Behlül
from another character’s stand point? What does Behlül’s story tell us regarding
the nature of desire? According to Girard, “in sexual desire, the presence of a
rival is not needed in order to term the desire triangular.”128 It may be possible to
understand Behlül’s motivations or desires to possess without having to include
Adnan Bey into the triangular scheme. Before moving into Behlül’s affair with
Bihter, Uşaklıgil gives his reader a detailed description of Behlül’s character, i.e.

127
Girard, Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, 26.
128
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 105.

45
how he perceives education and women; how he dresses and entertains himself,
what he reads, what he likes, etc. All of the details that are given to us make one
think of Behlül in multiple aspects: as a hedonist; a dandy; a romantic, but most
suitably a coquette. Hence, I argue that Behlül could be best explored within the
light of Girard’s idea of double mediation, more specifically with “coquetry.”
Girard defines coquetry as follows:

Sexual desire, like other triangular desires, is always contagious. To speak of

contagion is inevitably to speak of a second desire which is fixed on the same
object as the original desire. To imitate one’s lover’s desire is to desire
oneself, thanks to that lover’s desire. This particular form of double mediation
is called ‘coquetry.’129

Even though, in Deceit, Desire and the Novel, Girard uses the terms “coquetry”
and the “coquette” in order to describe Stendhal’s female heroine in the The Red
and The Black, Mathilde’s desires, a coquette does not necessarily have to be
female in his reading.130 Hence, in this part, I will explain why Behlül would be
defined as a (male) coquette. To begin with, let’s take a look at the passage
below:

Solche Geschichten gab Behlül bei jedem erdenklichen Anlass zum Besten.
Eine Stelle in einem Buch, eine witzige Geschichte, die er in der Zeitung
gelesen hatte, dienten Behlül als Stoff. Man hörte ihm zu and lachte. Die ihm
aber zuhörten und die über seine Geschichten lachten, waren aus seiner Sicht
nichts anderes als eine Herde von Dummköpfen. Tatsächlich amüsierte er sich
auf ihre Kosten. Diejenigen, die ihn umgaben, waren für ihn kaum mehr als
Werkzeuge, die er immer nur dann einsetzte, wenn er gerade seinen Spaß
haben wollte (VL 93).131

129
Ibid.
130
In Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, Girard argues that coquetry is not limited
only to women (371). The quotations I use for the discussion of coquetry in this study are from
Deceit, Desire and the Novel; hence the subject is a she, but for the purposes of this study, I apply
the argument in my analysis of Behlül.
131
“Her vesile ile naklolunucak hikayeleri vardı; bir kitapta okunmuş bir sahife, bir gazetede
tesadüfen görülmüş bir fıkra Behlül’e bir anlatma ortamı olurdu. Onu dinlerler ve mutlaka
gülerlerdi. Nazarında kendisini dinleyenler, dinlediklerinde gülenler bir alay ahmaklardan başka
bir şey değildi; asıl eğlenen kendisiydi. Etrafındakilere kendisinin zevki için ancak böyle lüzum
görüldükçe kullanılacak aletler kadar ehemmiyet verirdi” Aşk-ı Memnû, 113.

46
Influenced by novels such as Paul Bourget’s, Behlül, similar to Emma of
Madame Bovary, holds a kind of second-hand self-regard borrowed from books.
He is replete with imitation, which derives from textual mediation. This internal
mediation reflects itself in many aspects of his life. In the above paragraph, for
example, we see how Behlül needs the others’ approval as they listen and laugh
at his stories, but he hardly cares about them. According to a Girardian reading,
this dilemma could be best explained as Behlül’s indifference: indifference “is
never pure absence of desire. To the observer it always appears as the exterior
aspect of a desire of oneself. And it is this supposed desire which is imitated. Far
from contradicting the metaphysical desire, the dialectic of indifference
confirms them.”132 Although Behlül thrives on the attention of others, he, at the
same time, seems to show them little regard. Hence, he thrives even more; and
such deceit exacerbates his desire. As someone who perceives life as nothing but
an entertainment, Behlül “seems to live in a closed circuit, enjoying his own
being, in a state of happiness which nothing can disturb. He is God.”133
However, in order to continue in such a state, he needs the others.
In the context of desire and disdain, one can better understand Behlül’s
feelings towards women, especially Bihter. In Behlül and Bihter’s affair, the
lover and the beloved serve as models for and disciples of each other. Behlül
needs the admiration of Bihter so that he can experience coquetry. In a similar
vein with Girard’s description of Mathilde, Behlül, too, thrives on affection and
admiration of others, mostly women: “The favor she finds in her own eyes is
based exclusively on the favor with which she is regarded by Others. For this
reason the coquette is constantly looking for proofs of this favor.”134 Behlül
identifies in each gaze and compliment the image he tries to imitate; and it is
through these that he validates his sense of self. Being sure of himself,
throughout the novel, Behlül imitates sexual desire for different women; yet
each time what he really desires is himself. It is for this reason that he first of all

132
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 107.
133
Ibid.
134
Ibid, 105.

47
goes after Peyker, occasionally flirts with Firdevs Hanım, and has an affair with
Bihter.
Neither for Bihter nor Behlül, love is the ultimate reason of their affair.
After Behlül’s first intimate talk with Bihter, which is also the beginning of their
relationship, Behlül’s self-assurance is doubled; yet not fulfilled since he needs
the others to know about his victory. If only others could witness his affair with
Bihter, he would not then only take his revenge from Peyker but also prove
himself to the world, since he is now desired by ‘one of the most beautiful
woman in Istanbul,’ Bihter:

Er würde sich jedoch nicht damit begnügen, nur Peyker von seinem Triumph
zu berichten. Die ganze Welt sollte es wissen, dass er heute die schönste, die
elegantes Frau Istanbuls besessen hatte. Und er bedauerte: “Wie schade, dass
nur ich es wissen darf!” ( VL 215). 135

Behlül thinks of Bihter as victory: Through Bihter, internal mediation arrives at

its peek. Here, it is not Adnan Bey’s existence as a rival that produces triangular
desire but this time the triangle’s “three corners are occupied by the lover, the
beloved and the body of this beloved.”136
Reading Behlül’s feelings towards Bihter in the beginning of their affair,
one may tend to think that, according to Girard, there is something different
from mimetic desire that a coquette would feel for someone. What I have in
mind here is the romantic love, which is “physical but spiritually idealized
137
relationship between a man and a woman.” As a romantic, after all, Behlül,
just like Emma, is searching for the love of his life; and for a while he thinks
that he has found this love in Bihter:

Nun fuhr er fort “Oh, wenn du wüsstest, was es für mich bedeutet, dich zu
lieben. Erst durch dich erlange ich alles: mein Leben, mein Ich, mein Dasein.
Bevor ich dich liebte, war ich ein gefühlloses, stumpfes Etwas. Alles, was ich
unternommen hatte, damit ich Dinge verwicklichen konnte, denen ich

135
“Lakin bu başarıyı yalnız Peyker’e haber vermek yetmeyecekti, bütün dünyaya haber vermek
istiyordu ki o bugün İstanbul’un en güzel, en seçkin kadınına sahiptir. Kendi kendisine: -Ne kadar
yazık, diyordu. Bunu yalnız ben bileceğim” Aşk-ı Memnû 250.
136
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 105.
137
For more on the concept of romantic love, see Baruch’s “Romantic Narcissism: Freud and the
Love O/Abject” in Women, Love and Power.

48
 nachjagte und um die ich mich bemüht hatte, und alles, was ich mir
ausgedacht hatte, um damit meiner Jugend einen Sinn und Inhalt zu geben,
war Lüge […] Und du hast alles verändert, du hast in dieser schon
totgeglaubten Seele all diese aufrichtigen und reinen Wünsche geweckt. Erst
du hast dem Herzen, das nicht mehr Kraft zur Liebe hatte, gezeigt, dass es
bisher noch nie geliebt hatte und dass es von nun an nur noch dich lieben wird
( VL 232).138

This confession is also the starting point of Bihter and Behlül’s intimate
relationship, which will gradually bring the novel to its tragic end. Like
Mathilde, the female coquette, who “encourages and stirs up her lover’s desires,
not in order to give herself to him but to enable her the better to refuse him,”139
Behlül whispers such love words in Bihter’s ears at a time when she needs them
the most. By giving her the affection she seeks, Behlül gradually possesses
Bihter as a master possesses a slave.140 Similar to Behlül, Bihter, too, convinces
herself that she loves him. However, in a similar vein than Tristan and Isolde,
Behlül and Bihter “love each other, but each loves the other from the standpoint
of the self and not from the other’s standpoint. Their unhappiness thus originates
in a false reciprocity, which disguises a twin narcissism.”141 As explored earlier,
Bihter convinces herself that she is in love with Behlül so that she can legitimize
her adulterous affair. It is through love, she believes, that her relationship with
Behlül gains a meaning. For Behlül, the difficulty of spending time alone with
Bihter and Bihter’s denials of his affection in the beginning of their affair make
him desire her even more:

Obgleich sie im selben Haus lebten, würden sir vielleicht eine Woche lang
kein Wort miteinander wechseln können und diese ganze Woche lang unter
den Qualen der Trennung leiden. Doch dann würden sie in nur zehn Minuten,

138
“- Oh! Bilseniz, sizi sevmekle neler kazanıyorum; kendimi, varlığımı, işte siz bana bunları
kazandırıyorsunuz. Sizi sevmeden evvel hissiz, ruhsuz bir şeydim; bütün o koştuklarım,
uğraştıklarım yapılmak için yapılmış şeyler, boş geçirilmek istenilmeyen bir gençliği doldurmuş
olmak için icat olunan yalanlardı [...] Siz bunların hepsini değiştirdiniz, o ölmüş zannolunan ruhun
bütün saf ve temiz emellerini uyandırmış oldunuz. Artık sevmeye iktidarı yok kıyas edilen kalbin
o vakte kadar hiç sevmediğini bundan sonra, yalnız bundan sonra ve yalnız sizi seveceğini
gösterdiniz” Aşk-ı Memnû, 270.
139
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 105.
140
Here, too, this metaphor is in a similar vein with Girard as in Chapter IV of Deceit, Desire and
the Novel, where he refers to the Hegelian dialectic of master-slave.
141
Ibid., 108.

49
 die sie den neugierigen Blicken aller gestohlen hatten, für ihre ganze Pein
belohnt warden. Jede dieser Schwierigkeiten würde ihre Liebe neu entfachen,
würde sie vor dem Sterben bewahren und sie immer wieder in neuer Liebe
zueinander entbrenner lassen ( VL 218).142

As a coquette, Behlül desires whoever seems to be more distant, more difficult

to possess. Girard claims that metaphysical desire “gains support from the
obstacles we set in its way.”143 Hence, Bihter and Behlül’s secret meetings in
Behlül’s room at nights when everyone else in the mansion is asleep, adds more
to their passion _until passion is reversed and replaced by “hatred of the
beloved.”144
In the Introduction, I listed a set of questions, which I believe could be
answered by desire theory. Most of these questions that interest me start with
“why.” Why, for example, after a year later did Behlül get tired of Bihter? Why
could not their love be eternal as Behlül wanted it to be in the beginning? I
believe Girard’s metaphor of master and slave may provide a possible answer to
such questions: the more Bihter attends to Behlül, the less Behlül wants her
esteem. Bihter becomes the slave, whereas Behlül becomes the master. In his
discussion of coquetry, Girard explains this as follows: “[…] desire, instead of
raising the woman in her own eyes, lessens the lover in her opinion. The lover is
relegated to the realm of banal, the insipid, and the sordid where dwell objects
who let themselves be possessed.”145 Therefore, as Bihter reveals more affection
towards Behlül - so that she convinces herself that she loves him “genuinely,”
instead of feeling valued, Behlül starts to devalue her:

Behlül fand- ganz anders, als er es sich vorgestellt hatte- in Bihter eine
nachgiebige, träge Frau […] Bei ihren Schäferstündchen was Bihter so
sachlich, sie kam allen leidenschaftlichen Wünschen Behlüls so ergeben nach,
dass dieses Verhalten, das vielleicht ein Opfer darstellte, für Behlül nichts ab,
fand keiner Wünsche übertrieben. Dabei verhielt es sich jedoch so, dass er
142
“Bir hafta birbirlerine bir kelime söylemeyeceklerdi, aynı evde yaşarken bir hafta ayrılık
işkenceleri içinde ezileceklerdi, sonra herkesin meraklı bakışlarından çalınabilen on dakika içinde
bütün o işkencelerin mükafatını görebiliceklerdi. Bu zorlukların her biri onların aşklarını
tazeleyecek, ölmekten menedecek idi ve onlar her vakit taze bir aşkla sevişeceklerdi” Aşk-ı
Memnû, 254.
143
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 96.
144
Ibid., 108.
145
Ibid., 107.

50
 gerade auf die Zurückweisung, das Flehen und die Schwierigkeiten bei der
Verwirklichung seiner Wünsche angewiesen war, um die Liebe zu geniessen
(VL 301-2).146

As Bihter mimicks the role of the loyal lover, Behlül gets sick of her flirtatious
moods for being too much of a perfect disciple. Realizing this, Bihter lets herself
be possessed even more. By revealing her desires and doing anything that
Behlül wishes, Bihter gradually loses Behlül’s attention. In turn, she desires him
even more. Unfortunately, “no reversal of imitation is possible, for the slave’s
admitted desire destroys that of the master and ensures his genuine indifference.
This indifference in turn makes the slave desperate and increases his desire.”147
In Aşk-ı Memnu, Bihter, similar to Stendhal’s Julien, gradually becomes
Behlül’s slave since she made the mistake of revealing her desire:

In Behlüls Händen wurde diese Frau allmächlich zermalmt, sie wurde zu

Grunde gerichter und verwandelte sich schließlich in eine ordinäre Person- in
ein Werkzeug der schmutzisgten Lüste. Auch ihre Liebesbeziehung nahm den
Ruch des Gewöhnlichen an (VL 361-2).148

In this context, one may better understand why Behlül starts to look for another
slave to fulfill his needs, since “one is no longer tempted to make it once one’s
partner has revealed his own desire.”149 Although Behlül’s affair with Bihter
starts with passion and desire, it soon decreases to such a point that he no more
wants to be with her. This could be read as the coquette’s way of provoking
more desire in his object. In order to do so, he refuses Bihter and by doing so, he
further provokes that desire even more. Hence, Bihter does not react to Behlül’s

146
“Behlül, zannının tamamıyla tersine olarak, Bihter’de yumuşak, gevşek bir kadın buluyordu;
[…] Bihter o kadar maddeleşiyor, Behlül’ün bütün hırslı arzularına öyle mağlubiyetle uyuyordu
ki, belki bir fedakarlık olan bu şeyler, aleyhine çevrilerek onu bayağılaştıracak, saygınlıktan
düşürücek zilletler hükmüne geçmiş oluyordu. Behlül’e hiç bir şey reddedilmiyordu, onun hiç bir
arzusu fazla bulunmuyordu, halbuki o reddilmeye, yalvarmaya, istenen şeyin zor elde edilmiş
olmasından lezzet almaya muhtaç idi” Aşk-ı Memnû, 345.
147
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 109. One could compare Girard’s discussion of
indifference of the lover with Kierkegaard’s idea that it is resistance alone that gives the beloved
women her value. See Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 438-439.
148
“Yavaş yavaş bu kadın Behlül’ün elinde ezilecek, hırpalanacak, sonra en kirli heveslere alet
edilecek sefil bir mahluk oluyordu; muaşakalarına bile bir sefalet rengi geliyordu, Behlül bu
seçkin sevdanın mümtaziyetini muhafazaya itina etmez olmuş idi” Aşk-ı Memnû, 400.
149
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 109.

51
disappearence from the mansion even though she knows that he is spending his
nights with another woman since she hopes she can continue her affair with him.
Only by the end of the novel, when the engagement between Behlül and Nihal
becomes definite does Bihter start reacting.
In the previous part Bihter’s suicide was explored in depth, so I do not
elobarate on it here. But what is striking about the end of Behlül’s story is his
devotion to Nihal. Even though there is a parallel between the beginning of
Behlül’s respective affairs with Bihter and Nihal in the sense that each time,
Behlül thinks she is the one for whom he has been looking, regarding Nihal,
there is a crucial difference in what Behlül requires or expects from Bihter: This
time, unlike what he sought in Bihter, Behlül is looking for someone to marry.
And out of all the women in his life, Nihal is the best option for him. She is the
most innocent of all. Therefore, she becomes a model since Behlül wants to be
like her. In this respect, the feelings he has towards Nihal are rather different
from what he has felt for Bihter: Rather than passion, he now feels affection.
Rather than beauty, it is Nihal’s innocence that attracts Behlül’s attention. As a
coquette, Behlül does play similar games when he confesses his love to Nihal,
too, but what is more crucial than the degree of his feelings or Nihal’s is a
possible marriage between these two cousins; a marriage which would be
arranged by Firdevs Hanım as a counter-strike against her daughter Bihter, and
later approved by the rest of the members of the mansion, including Adnan Bey.
Hence, this is why the engagement of Behlül and Nihal starts as a joke, a reason
for entertainment and quickly turns into a serious matter.150
I believe a Girardian reading helps to give a meaning to various
characters; however this alone may not be enough to explore the theme of
adultery in Aşk-ı Memnu. Hence, at this point, my aim is to add into Girard’s

150
Behlül and Bihter’s marriage, although did not realize in the end of the novel, reflects the
arranged marriage practices of the period. In her extended study on adultery novels, Armstrong
argues that these novels also stood as a criticism against the arranged bourgeoisie marriages in
nineteenth century and was quite a common setting in adultery novels: “The loveless marriage-
arrangement [...] is seen by the writers to be the grand coupable of the nineteenth century; and in
this we must see a difference with our own age, where it would surely be true to say that discovery
of incompatibility following the love-match most commonly entails the success of the lover (The
Novel, 14). For more information on the topic see: Armstrong, The Novel of Adultery.

52
triangular desire by looking at the gender dynamics in Behlül and Bihter’s affair
in order to explore how the adultery theme is dealt with in the novel.
In the first chapter of Between Men: English Literature and Male
Homosocial Desire, entitled as “Gender Asymmetry and Erotic Triangles,” Eve
Kosofsky Sedgwick points out the symmetry of Girard’s triangular formulation
as she claimed that “both Girard and Freud [...] treat the erotic triangle as
symmetrical- in the sense that its structure would be relatively unaffected by the
power difference that would be introduced by a change in the gender of one of
the participants.”151 Even though this is a criticism of Girard’s theory, Sedgwick
also argues, “the hidden symmetries that Girard’s triangle helps us discover will
always in turn discover hidden obliquities.”152 As I defined Behlül as a coquette
and tried to analyze his affair with Bihter within the light of coquetry, I have
also treated Girard’s triangle as symmetrical, yet this has helped me “discover
hidden obliquities” in Aşk-ı Memnu since such a reading did not consider gender
as arbitrary but rather reveal the male/female dichotomy by exploring how the
symmetry of the specific triangle of Bihter and Behlül is disturbed by gender
difference:

Behlül hatte durchaus bemerkt, dass eine Entwicklung ihren lauf genommen
hatte und er sich ganz in die Haende dieser Frau begeben hatte, ja er war noch
dazu ganz offensictlich unter die Herrschaft einer Frau geraten. Er was es, in
dessen Zimmer sie kam, den sie besuchte. Ganz nach Belieben verfügte sie
frei über ihn. Ohne gründlich über diese Sache nachzudenken, sah er in dieser
Art von Liebschaft eine Erniedrigung seiner selbst, und ganz tief in seinem
Herzen fühlte er aus einem Grund, den er sogar sich selbst verbarg,
Feindschaft gegen Bihter” (VL 301-2).153

I have shown that gradually Behlül’s passion turned into “hatred of the
beloved,”154and once again it is time to ask why? There are two possible
answers to this question. According to Girard, it is typical for the coquette. As
151
Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, 23.
152
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 22.
153
“Behlül, pek açık olmamakla beraber, bu kadının elinde kendisinin, evet, asıl kendisinin bir
kadın hükmünde kalmaya başladığını fark eder oluyordu. Odasına gelinip, aranılan, her arzu
olundukça alınıp sahip olunan kendisiydi. Pek iyi çözümlemeksizin bu muaşaka tarzından kendine
bir alçalma çıkarıyor ve kalbinin ta derin, kendi nefsine karşı bile gizli tutulan bir noktasından
Bihter’e bir düşmanlık hissediyordu” Aşk-ı Memnû, 344.
154
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 108.

53
he explores Stendhal’s The Red and The Black, Girard illustrates how “in the
universe of internal mediation [...] force has lost its prestige.”155 Moreover, he
argues that “the triumph of Black over Red symbolizes this defeat of force.”156
However, in Aşk-ı Memnu, one wonders if it is really force that is defeated or
only a kind of force limited to women. If Bihter were not the active one in their
relationship and fit to the norms of womanhood; if only she were less stronger,
less dareful, could Behlül give her up so easily?157 Probably no. However,
Behlül’s lines of thought in the above paragraph seems to distrupt the symmetry
of Girard’s triangle. Not that Behlül does not fit into Girard’ definition of
coquette as a male, yet it is more so because he fits so well. Girard claims “if
one is not strong enough to live in freedom one succumbs to the evil spell of
vain rivalry;”158 and so does Behlül. What happens is that he feels inferior than
Bihter. In this case, I believe, it is not the defeat of force, but rather the defeat of
Behlül against Bihter, his beloved rival. It is for this reason that Behlül, whose
morals were questioned in the beginning of the novel by the narrator, starts
perceiving Bihter as the immoral woman as he blames her and only her for their
adulterous affair:

Wie oft hatte er [...]Bihter aus einem Gefühl heraus eine Schuld zugesprochen
wegen der Unbeschertheit, mit der ihre Liebe Erfüllung fand und weiterging.
Dass er sie eines Abends in seinem Zimmer zu einem gänzlich unerwarteten
Zeitpunkt besiegen konnte, nachdem er sich zum ersten Mal getraut und ihr
nur zwei Worte gesagt hatte- Bihters Sturz in die Ehrlosigkeit also-,
betrachtete er als unentschulbares Vergehen [...] Bihter schien seit damals die
Würdelosigkeit, die Schande dieser Liebschaft nicht im Geringsten zu
empfinden. Diese Entehrung, diese Schaendlichkeit spürte Behlül dagegen
jetzt umso staerker [...] Sich selbst verzieh er, und lass zu weiteren
Beschuldigungen gegen Bihter. In den Händen der Frau, die sich immer
wieder seiner bemächtigte und das fortgesetzt tat, sah er sich als unschuldiges
Werkzeug eines Verbrechens (VL 304-5).159

155
Ibid., 122 –italics added.
156
Ibid., 112.
157
In a different context, Fatima Mernissi explores the gender roles of men and women as she
explores how women are expected to be passive and men to be active. See: Beyond the Veil:
Male- Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society. Since Bihter does not fit into such a
definition, Behlül does not know how to react towards Bihter’s active behavior.
158
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 112.
159
[...] Bihter’s bu aşkın husulündeki ve devamındaki kolaylıklardan bir töhmet hissi çıkarmış idi.
O düşmeyi, bir akşam odasında en beklenmeyen bir dakikada, birince defa olarak cesaret edilip
söylenmiş olan iki kelime ile vuku bulan o mağlubiyeti, affedilmez bir kabahat olmak üzere kabul

54
Here we see how, as Girard argues, what was once valued now becomes
ordinary in the eyes of the lover. According to Behlül, Bihter is the defeated
rival because she has given herself to him too easily; hence she is now nothing
but a low adulteress. From here, I would now like to go back to Bihter’s suicide
and interpret it from this point. Even though he rejects it, Behlül is as
responsible for the adulterous relationship as much as Bihter. However, in the
end of the novel, Uşaklıgil kills Bihter, not Behlül. In this respect, it is Bihter
who is charged with the adultery, not Behlül. As the readers, we do not know
what happens to Behlül after everything is revealed. He simply disappears from
the novel; maybe until he starts searching for a new “flower” for he thinks that
“die eigentliche Poesie aber sind die Frauen! Sie gleichen den Blumen, die euch
wohlriechend aus den feinen Vasen in den goldverzierten Nischen Eurer
Zimmer anlächen” (VL 135).160 Bihter, on the other hand, like Emma Bovary or
Anna Karenina, the other adulterous women of fiction, ends her own life. After
Bihter’s suicide, we do not know what happens to Firdevs Hanım or Peyker; just
like Behlül, these women, too, disappear from the novel. What we are left with
is Nihal’s wish of a new life with her father: “Seite an Seite, stets gemeinsam,
im Leben und im Sterben,” as we have already cited (VL 457).161 The ending of
the novel is reminiscent of Tony Tanner’s arguments below about the adulterous
woman:

From the point of view of that society [bourgeois society], adultery introduces
a bad multiplicity within the requisite unities of social roles. From another
point of view, we could say that the unfaithful wife, in social terms, a self-
canceling figure, one from whom society would prefer to withhold
recognition so that it would be possible to say that socially and categorically
the adulterous woman does not exist.162

ediyordu [...] Bihter bu alçalmasını, ayıbını hiç hissetmiyor gibiydi. Lakin o züllü, o ayıbı şimdi
Behlül duyuyordu [...] Kendisini affediyordu ve kendisini affetmek için bulunan sebepler bütün
Bihter için fazla bir töhmet vesilesi oluyordu. Onu gelip alan kadın hala gelip almakta devam
ediyordu, onun ellerinde kendini günahsız bir cinayet aleti masumiyetiyle görüyordu” Aşk-ı
Memnû, 348.
160
“Lakin asıl şiir kadınlardır, bu çiçeklerden teşkil edilerek odanızın yaldızlı hücrelerinde rakik
çiçekliklerde muattar hatıralarıyla size gülümseyen demetlerdir” Aşk-ı Memnû, 160.
161
“-Beraber, hep beraber, yaşarken ve ölürken...” Aşk-ı Memnû, 514.
162
Tanner, Adultery in the Novel, 13.

55
It seems that Bihter, by her suicide, also becomes “a self-canceling figure”.
Adnan Bey and Nihal continue living together as if “the adulterous woman [did]
not exist.” There are many other possible interpretations of Bihter’s suicide.
Regarding Tanner’s “self-canceling figure” argument, one could suggest that by
killing the female protagonist, Uşaklıgil punishes Bihter for her adulterous
affair. Yet, he does it in a way that gives the responsibility to her. In the end, she
kills herself with her own free will. Similar to Ileri’s claim, by doing so, the
author takes side with Nihal. For, after all what happens she is the one who
survives.163 In this respect, the conclusion involves a moral lesson that presents
the tragic end of the unfaithful wife. Aside from this argument, one can also
claim that Bihter’s suicide turns her into a “self-canceling figure” within the
novelistic space, but this, in fact, makes her immortal. Just like the other
adulterous women, including Emma and Anna Karenina, and Effi Briest who
have become among the most popular female characters in the European
literature, Bihter, too, is one of the most well-known protagonists in Turkish
literature. And this, one can argue, is partially due to her tragic suicide. Hence,
her death in the novel, just like the other female adulterous who commit suicide,
provides her immortality in the literary sphere.
Let us now go back to Girard’s theory and interpret Behlül’s
disappearance and Bihter’s suicide within the light of Girard’s claims on
novelistic conclusions. As explained in the previous sections, the end of the
novel gives the impression that everything happens all of a sudden. We do not
know where Behlül goes or what will happen to Firdevs Hanım and Peyker. All
we know is the reunion of Adnan Bey’s family. Even so, the conclusion is rather
ambigious. For, there is no clear new level of consciousness for Nihal in the end,
that one does not see from where she has mentally moved to where, that
everything is very open. On the one hand, there is Bihter’s suicide, which in
Girardian reading may be seen as the ultimate whence of desire, and at the same
time, her punishment for her adulterous affair. After all the difficult experiences,

163
Ileri, Kamelyasız Kadınlar, 237.

56
Nihal gets what she wants. And she announces her victory by being with her
father in the mansion. In this sense, the end of Aşk-ı Memnu is a very simple
one. It seems like the bad characters disappear and punished, whereas the good
ones live happily ever after. Yet, following Girard’s claim that “the great
novelistic conclusions are banal but they are not conventional,” and that “their
lack of rhetorical ability, even their clumsiness, constitute their true beauty,”164
one can argue that this is a novelistic conclusion.

164
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 309.

57
 Part III
Comparison of Aşk-ı Memnu and Madame Bovary

So far I have presented my reading of Aşk-ı Memnu within the light of

Girard’s triangular desire theory. What I aim to do in this part is to compare this
reading of the novel with Madame Bovary. Being one of the most prominent
novels of adultery, the plot of Madame Bovary has been adopted by many
authors into various national literatures. Consequently, there have been
numerous studies dealing with this issue, namely on how Flaubert’s text was
‘imported’ and how it influenced the writings of other authors.165 At first sight,
one could also see Flaubert’s influence in Uşaklıgil’s writing, especially in Aşk-ı
Memnu in which Uşaklıgil adopts the adultery theme into the Ottoman context.
Written in the realist tradition and dealing with the issues of marriage,
dissatisfaction of female protagonists and their search for happiness outside of
their marriage, there are certain similarities as well as differences between the
two novels. As I have mentioned earlier Uşaklıgil was an admirer of French
literature and realistic genre in general and of Flaubert in specific. Having this in
mind, one could possibly argue that while adopting a Western genre, the novel,
into the Ottoman-Turkish literature, Uşaklıgil was not only using new narrative
techniques, but at the same time, he was borrowing some thematic ideas, which
would then help him better construct the plot of his novels. For instance, in Aşk-ı
Memnu, as Uşaklıgil tells his reader the story of Adnan Bey’s family and Melih
Bey’s Clan, he elaborates on the conditions and psychology of characters that
eventually led Bihter and Behlül into an adulterous relationship. In this respect,
as one of the first examples of the modern Turkish novel, Aşk-ı Memnu differs
from the previous literary tradition. For, now the author does not leave the
development and ending of his story to faith or luck but to the very decision of
his characters.166 Therefore, the novel fits into the realistic tradition, which

165
A very good example of this is Amann’s Importing Madame Bovary: The Politics of Adultery.
166
As Jennifer Noyon argues, by using the narrative techniques of the novel, Uşaklıgil stands
against the fairy tales of the Ottoman literary tradition, in which the plot depends on the faith of

58
Uşaklıgil praised in his criticism of the French authors, including Flaubert.
Thinking about the literary agenda of a group of Turkish authors, which
Uşaklıgil was a part of, and also thinking about their attempt to move the
Turkish literature to a new phase, which would be compatible with the West, it
is not surprising that Flaubert’s novels including Madame Bovary affected
Uşaklıgil’s writing.167 However, my aim here is not to point out to certain
similarities or references of influence between Madame Bovary and Aşk-ı
Memnu. I believe that such an analysis, which merely focuses on the notion of
intertextuality, may disregard the specific features of each novel. Moreover, it
may mislead one’s reading of the novels.
This potential risk has been pointed out by Nurdan Gürbilek in her
critical article “Dandies and Originals: Authenticity, Belatedness, and the
Turkish Novel,” where she deals with the issues such as Turkish identity and the
rather late adaptation of the novel into Turkish literature in the early twentieth
century. Gürbilek argues that “most Turkish critics blame Turkish novelists for
creating secondhand characters lacking spontaneity and originality, characters
who are prisoners of imitated desires, copied sensibilities, bookish aspirations,
and belated torments.”168 This kind of approach to Turkish novels may be due to
the nature of the criticism, which considers the foreign novel as the original,
whereas, the Turkish novel as the imitated one. Hence, the early modern Turkish
novel, written decades after its pioneers in Europe, cannot escape to be marked
as belated in the eyes of the critic. Pointing out the critics’ approach to the
Turkish novel, Gürbilek claims that “it is as if the critical attempt has eliminated
itself because of a defect inherent in the object [the Turkish novel] itself, the
critic becoming a Western observer entrusted with the task of showing how
‘presence’ is spared from the local object, someone in charge of declaring that
the original version of everything local is elsewhere.”169 Furthermore, Gürbilek

the characters rather than their decision. See Noyon, Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil’s Hikaye and
Westernization in the Late Ottoman Empire.
167
For more on the history of Turkish literature and the development of the Turkish novel, see
Finn, Early Turkish Novel.
168
Gürbilek, “Dandies and Originals: Authenticity, Belatedness, and the Turkish Novel,” 600.
169
Ibid.

59
argues that “the attempt to create a national literature without breaking the
cultural continuum is a contradiction in itself, and the very obsession with
authenticity represents the anxiety of losing one’s self in the ‘superior’
model.”170 I believe that Gürbilek’s discussion of the early modern Turkish
novel and the anxiety of the authors aroused by its belatedness does not only
underline the approach of the critics, which I believe to be rather problematic,
but also although implicitly, it refers to Girard’s argument of imitated desire:
what Girard praises the great authors for in his work is what the critics blame the
Turkish authors for in Gürbilek’s article. According to Girard, the great
novelists, while revealing the true nature of desire, point out the inauthenticity of
self. It is for this reason that their works become the great novels of literature,
not because they are authentic or original. For this reason, in one’s discussion of
Aşk-ı Memnu, one of the early modern Turkish novels, Girard’s theory of
imitated desire and his arguments on the features of novelistic works may be an
interesting point of reference, which provides a rather new opportunity for
interpretation, especially when the novel is compared with one of the most
prominent novels of the Western literature.
In Deceit, Desire and the Novel, Girard argues that “the idea of mediation
enables literary comparisons at a level which is no longer that of genre criticism
or thematic criticism. It may illuminate the works through each other; it may
unite them without destroying their irreducible singularity.”171 Following
Girard’s argument, what I will be doing here is to focus on the idea of mediation
on my comparison of the two novels. In order to do this, I will mostly depend on
Girard’s own reading of Madame Bovary even though at times, I will try to
challenge some of his arguments. Moreover, aside from the idea of mediation, I
will also take into account the theme of adultery as a basis for comparison. I
believe the thematic comparison is crucial for two main reasons. First of all, I
agree with Tony Tanner’s claim that “by entering an adulterous relationship, a
person introduces a new element of narrative in his or her life, initiates a new

170
Ibid., 607.
171
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 23.

60
living ‘story;’ so for the novelist it is often not really marriage that initiates and
inspires his narrative, but adultery.”172 Tanner furthermore argues “that does
offer something to tell.”173 Similarly, I believe the adulterous relationships of
Bihter and Emma do tell us something, which may be analyzed in parallel with
Girard’s idea of mediaton. For, it is the mediators that may help us understand
how the plot of each novel distinctively revolves around the theme of adultery.
Secondly, as mentioned previously, adultery and Girard’s triangular scheme are
inextricably related. Hence, disregarding the thematic comparison may lead to
an incomplete analysis.
Before moving into the comparison of the two novels, I would, first of
all, like to give a brief summary of Madame Bovary: Charles Bovary, who is a
country doctor, falls in love with Emma Roault, the daughter of a patient after
the death of his first wife. Soon the two get married and set up a house in Tostes.
However, shortly after marriage, Emma faces the boredom of village life and
gets disappointed to realize that her marriage is nothing similar to her romantic
idea of marriage and love, which she knows through romantic novels. Her
disappointment and boredom gradually makes her sick and depressed.
With the hope of reviving Emma’s health, Charles decides to find a job
in a different town, in Yonville after Emma gets pregnant. In Yonville, the
Bovary family meets new people including Leon, a law clerk. As soon as they
meet Emma and Leon discover their common interest in music and romantic
novels. Their conversations lessen their boredom of the rural life of Yonville
and make them attach to each other. Even though their relationship does not
involve sexuality, Emma feels torn apart between being a dutiful wife and a
passionate woman, who discovers her desires in Leon. During this time, Emma
gives birth to her daughter, Berthe. And soon Leon moves to Paris to study law
and their affair never comes into full existence until they meet again later in the
novel.

172
Tony Tanner, Adultery in the Novel, 377.
173
Ibid.

61
 After Leon’s departure, Emma becomes more depressed than before, and
hates Charles even more for his mediocre and dull personality. It is at such a
time in her life that Emma starts a new affair with Rodolphe, a new neighbor
who adores Emma for her beauty. Through Rodolphe’s sensitive romance,
Emma tries to fill the gap in her life. Even though Charles’ incompetence in a
surgery disrupts his repetition in town and causes financial troubles for the
Bovarys, Emma secretly spends money for presents for Rodolphe. After having
convinced herself that Rodolphe is her “Prince Charming”174 , Emma suggests to
run away with him. However, being bored with Emma’s constant affection,
Rodolphe leaves Emma in Yonville and moves away. Rodolphe’s absence,
similar to Leon’s departure, makes Emma sick once again. Charles has to spend
a lot of money for her recovery as well as for her debts that she owes to various
people in Yonville for Rodolphe’s presents. Even at this point Charles does not
discover Emma’s affairs and his feelings toward her increases as her health gets
worse.
It takes a long time until Emma recovers, but never fully. Even though
she is not in good health, Charles insists taking Emma to an opera in a nearby
town, Rouen. There the Bovarys meet Leon by coincidence. After that night at
the opera, Emma continues her affair with Leon secretly in Rouen, where she
goes to meet him once a week. During this time, Emma becomes careless
regarding her affair with Leon as well as money. She keeps borrowing money
from a lender, Lheureux. When Lheureux asks for his money back with a high
interest, Emma asks for money from Leon and other businessmen since
Lheureux threatens her to tell about her secret affair to Charles. Towards the
end, she asks Rodolphe for money, and in turn, offers to prostitute herself for
him; yet she is rejected. Rodolphe’s rejection makes her realize her
disillusionment. For, she finds “in adultery nothing but the platitudes of
marriage.”175 In the end, she poisons herself with arsenic. Shortly after Emma’s
death, Charles finds about her affairs. His confrontation with the truth causes his

174
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 18.
175
Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 292.

62
death. Being left alone after the death of her parents, Bertha is sent to work in a
cotton mill.
Even from the brief summaries of the novels, one can see certain
similarities in the lives of female protagonists of Aşk-ı Memnu and Madame
Bovary, yet there are also certain differences that are at stake. Having Girard’s
idea of mediation as the main point of reference in mind, one can see that
comparison on the level of these two characters is rather restricting since in Aşk-
ı Memnu, there are various forms of mediation that are crucial for the
construction of desires of a higher number of characters than in Madame
Bovary.
In his analysis of Flaubert’s works, Girard claims that “Flaubert’s
characters are always attracted by what attracts their fellow men. They can
desire only what the Others desire.”176 This is of course valid for Emma in
Madame Bovary. Regarding her desire of others’ desire, Emma’s character is
divided into various characters in Aşk-ı Memnu. For, it is not only Bihter, who
desires according to others, but almost all of the characters.
One striking difference between the two novels is the distance of the
mediators and the subjects: in Madame Bovary, Emma’s Parisian mediator is an
example of what Girard defines as external mediation. Even though “traveler’s
tales, books, and the press bring the latest fashion of the capital even to
Yonville,” and even when “Emma comes closer to her mediator when she goes
to the ball at the Vaubyessard’s,”177 her mediator will never be as close to her.
As Girard argues “Emma will never be able to desire that which the incarnations
of her ‘ideal’ desire; she will never be able to be their rival; she will never leave
for Paris.”178 In Aşk-ı Memnu, on the other hand, the subjects are closer to their
mediators. The desires of characters are based on the ambiguous relationship
towards each other: Rivalry, admiration, and jealousy… all these feelings
toward one another reflect upon Girard’s definition of internal mediation. I
argue that it is this distinction between the two forms of mediation that underline

176
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 136.
177
Ibid., 8.
178
Ibid.

63
a crucial difference among the two novels: Unlike Emma, who would never be
the rival of the incarnation of her ideal desire as claimed by Girard, the
characters in Aşk-ı Memnu, due to their closeness to their mediators, are also
their rivals. This issue was explained in detail in the previous part, where the
main focus was on the changing roles of Bihter and Nihal as the mediators and
rivals of each other. However, internal mediators in Aşk-ı Memnu are not limited
to these two characters. Just like Nihal, Peyker is Bihter’s rival, too. Firdevs
Hanım is both a rival and mediator of Bihter. And Bihter is a mediator for all,
including her mother, her lover and her stepdaughter.
I suggest that the different forms of mediators in Madame Bovary and
Aşk-ı Memnu, which appear as external in the first one and as internal in the
latter, determine the level of tragedy in the novels. Based on Girard’s
comparison among the novels of Stendhal, Proust and Dostoveysky, in this
respect Aşk-ı Memnu is the closest to Dostoyevsky’s. For, in his novels “internal
mediation exerts its dissolving power at the very heart of family itself. It affects
a dimension of existence which remains more or less inviolable in the French
novelists,”179 including Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. According to a Girardian
reading then the existence of internal mediation within the familial relationships
is one of the major reasons why Aşk-ı Memnu may be considered more tragic
than Madame Bovary since “the closer the mediator comes, the more bitter are
the fruits of triangular desire.”180 Within the household of Adnan Bey’s
mansion, the spiritual closeness of the family members increases their
possibilites of penetrating into each other’s spheres in various ways. As a result,
“the priority of rivalry over desire inevitably increases the amount of suffering
caused by vanity.”181 And it consequently affects each and every character in the
novel more or less profoundly.
It is not only internal mediation that is featured at Aşk-ı Memnu. Aside
from the model-disciple relationship within the family circle, it is also possible
to see that there is at least one external mediator, which is very similar to

179
Ibid., 42.
180
Ibid., 41-42.
181
Ibid., 136.

64
Emma’s. Just like Emma’s, Behlül’s mediator in Aşk-ı Memnu is also a textual
one. Being an avid reader of Paul Bourget novels, Behlül, too, is highly
influenced by literary texts. Even though this influence is not elaborated as
explicitly as it does in Madame Bovary, one can still see the affects of this
textual mediation in Behlül’s way of thinking and speech. In Madame Bovary,
Emma’s search for a lover is due to her imitation of the heroines of romance
novels and I believe, similarly, Behlül’s search for a woman is due to his
imitation. Let us now focus on the features of such imitation that leads Behlül to
desire various women in the novel. Regarding his feelings towards women, in
the second part, Behlül was defined as a coquette, for similar reasons why
Girard in Deceit, Desire and the Novel uses the term. At this point, I would like
to propose another definition for him: a dandy. From his appearance to his life
style, one could see the characteristics of a dandy in Behlül or someone who
tries to be a dandy. This has been pointed out by Wolfgang Rieman in the
Afterword of Verbotene Lieben, his translation of Aşk-ı Memnu into German.
Rieman’s argument is as follows:

Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem, der sich in seinen Werken auch über das
gedankenlose Nachäffen westlicher Lebensart lustig machte. Seine Figur
Bihruz aus dem Roman Araba Sevdası (Eine Leidenschaft für Kutschen,
1896) begegnet uns wieder in dem Dandy Behlül aus Verbotene Lieben, der
sich ebenso wie die Romanfigur Ekrems eine Lebensphilosophie zurechtlegt,
die sich an dem orientiert, was er für europäischen Lebensstil halt.”182

There are two interesting remarks in Rieman’s argument. First one of these is his
comparison of Behlül with Bihruz, the first Westernized dandy of the Turkish
novel, who is the main character of Recaizade Ekrem’s Araba Sevdası (Carriage
Affair). I think the similarity of Emma, Bihruz and Behlül, regarding their
borrowed desires is important for my further discussion of the early modern
Turkish literature. Even though at this point, my further claims may be rather
general, I believe that the Girardian comparison of Madame Bovary and Aşk-ı
Memnu at least provides an opportunity to think about the notion of imitation

182
Rieman, Afterword in Verbotene Lieben. 460-461.

65
within a larger scope, which does not only come into existence within the
novelistic space and include the characters, but also of the authors and their
desires. In order to do this, I will start with a rather long quotation from
Gürbilek’s same article, “Dandies and Originals: Authenticity, Belatedness, and
the Turkish Novel” and then go back to my comparison of Emma and Behlül:

What makes the Ottoman dandy and the provincial French woman alike is
that both lack spontaneity and are reduced to bookish passions. Emma is
provoked to love by the romantic novels ‘full of gloomy forests, romantic
intrigue, vows, sobs, embraces and tears,’ as is Bihruz by the ‘desire-invoking
novels’ his French teacher Monsieur Piyer recommends. Emma craves for
Paris once she breathes ‘the dust of cheap novels’ she devours when only
fifteen, and so does Bihruz [...] It is because of this literary inculculation that
Emma deems Rudolphe a prince with the white horse and Bihruz takes the
loose coquette for a noble lady [...] Flaubert’s characters were marked by ‘an
essential lack of a fixed character and originality of their own,’ escaping from
their insuffieciencies by identifying with an image they took for their own,
perceiving themselves as the other [...] since they were nothing of their own
accord. Despite all their differences [...] they (Emma and Bihruz) shared the
same lack of originality , the same lack of autosuggestion from within.”183

Based on Gürbilek’s remarks, it is possible to see a parallel among the three

characters, namely Emma, Bihruz and Behlül. Even though the influence of
romance novels is not as clear in Aşk-ı Memnu, Behlül, too is lacking
spontaneity and provoked by similar bookish passions. Behlül’s constant
references to poetry while he commenting on women and his love of Paul
Bourget can be an example of how he is provoked by textual mediation like
Emma. Moreover, there is also another kind of external mediation at stake: a
musical one. Hearing Nihal playing songs of Les Cloches de Corneville, Le Petit
Duc, and Moscatte, Behlül is not merely remembering his past, but similar to
Emma’s dreaming of the single night at Vaubyessard’s, he is escaping from his
insufficiencies as he identifies an image he has taken as his own, just like Emma
as claimed by Gürbilek. Therefore, similar to Jules de Gaurtier’s idea of the
bovarystic characters who fates to “obey the suggestion of an external milieu,”
Behlül gradually shifts from Bihter to Kette, and then from Kette to Nihal, not

183
Gürbilek, “Dandies and Originals: Authenticity, Belatedness, and the Turkish Novel,” 617-
618.

66
because of his spontaneous or rather genuine emotions, but because of the image
of himself that these ladies offer to him:

Während er Nihal zuhörte, öffneten sie in seiner Vorstellung auf einmal

versteckte Winkel, die in eine Flut von Licht, eine Kaskade von Farben
getaucht waren. Vor sich sah er die Bühne im Odeon und eine verrückte
Szene im Concordia. Nackte Schultern und Arme, winzige Elegante
Schühchen aus weißem Satin zogen in schnellem Flug an seinem inneren
Auge vorbei. In diesem Augenblick spürte er große Sehnsucht, denn in
seinem Leben sollte sich doch eigentlich alles um die aufregenden
Attraktionen jener Welt drehen (VL, 300). 184

Having similar kind of mediations and mediated desires – to be someone rather

than themselves – one could argue that regarding the respective role of men and
women in their lives, Emma and Behlül are quite similar in their construction of
a Girardian triangular scheme. Emma “could go on changing lovers endlessly
without ever changing her dream,”185 and so could Behlül. Provoked by her
external mediator, Emma tries to fulfill her desire to be someone else through
her affairs with Leon and Rodolphe; and Behlül tries to fulfill his by being with
Bihter, Kette and eventually Nihal. I believe this parallel proves Girard’s claim
of the symmetry of his desire theory. Regardless of the desiring subject’s
gender, the mediator functions in the same way, and consequently the role of the
desired object becomes identical in the eyes of the subject. Either it is Emma’s
wish to run away from the banality of provincial life or Behlül’s attempt to be a
dandy, in either case, it is through the Other that it is tried to be achieved. And in
such a relationship between the self and the other, the gender of the subject does
not change the mechanism of the Girardian triangle. But the gender difference
between the subject and the object plays a crucial role, at least for the
aforementioned characters. For, they want to realize their desire through the
Other, who is always from the opposite sex. This reading emphasizes the
heterosexual construction of Girard’s triangular desire, which is criticized by

184
Nihal’i dinlerken hayalinin içinde üzerine ziya tufanları, renk şelaleri dökülmüş köşeler
açılıyor, Odeon sahnesinin bir tarafını, Concordia’nın delice alemini görüyor; sonra çıplak
omuzlar, kollar, mini mini zarif beyaz satenden iskarpinler bir hızlı uçma ile gözlerinin içinde
uçuyordu. O zaman kalbinde derin bir özlem hissediyordu, onun hayatı işte o alemin heyecanları
içinde yuvarlanmalıydı.
185
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 89.

67
 some scholars.186 Even though Girard’s scheme is heterosexual, it does not
necessarily consist of a female and two males, as Girard generally discusses it.
As one can see from Aşk-ı Memnu, two females may also be rivals over a man,
i.e. a triangle made of Bihter, Nihal and Behlül. This triangle will be dealt with
in greater detail. What is crucial now is to keep in mind the two features of
Girard’s argument that the comparison of Madame Bovary and Aşk-ı Memnu
reveals: first of all, the symmetry of the triangular scheme does not change as
the gender of the desiring subject changes. What is more important than the
gender of the subject is the gender difference between the subject and object.
Therefore, Girard’s triangular construction is mostly based on heterosexual
relationships. Let us now go back to Behlül.
Thinking about Rieman’s claim that Behlül is depicted as a Western
dandy similar to Recaizade Ekrem’s Bihruz, one should keep in mind that this
character was often featured in the early modern Turkish novel. Therefore, as a
young Istanbulite, Behlül is not only similar to Bihruz in his attempt to be a
dandy since “this figure, the Westernized dandy who previously appeared in
Ahmet Mithat’s novel Felatun Bey and Rakım Efendi [Felatun Bey’le Rakım
Efendi], kept showing up again and again in later Tanzimat novels like Quick to
Fall [Şıpsevdi] by Hüseyin Rahmi and Efruz Bey by Ömer Seyfettin.”187 This
subject, namely “the abundance of dandies in Tanzimat literature”188 can
possibly be linked with another Girardian claim:189 these aforementioned works
have not become some of the most prominent novels of Turkish literature
through their originality or spontaneity. Unlike the Turkish critics, who blame
the Turkish novelists for creating “secondhand characters who are prisoners of
imitated desires,” as Gürbilek’s article points out, I argue that the reason why

186
For a more detailed overview of criticism against Girard, See Part I. Moi and Sedgwick, for
instance, are two of the scholars who criticize various aspects of Girard’s theory.
187
Ibid., 608. My aim here is not to explain why a dandy has been such a popular figure in the
early Turkish modern novel, but for my further claim it is useful to look at Şerif Mardin’s comments on
dandyism as they are discussed in Garble’s article: “According to Mardin, the abundance of
dandies […] in Tanzimat literature is a response to the shock Western civilization caused in the
Ottoman Empire.”
188
Ibid., 608.

68
these novels are considered masterpieces of Turkish literature may be similar to
Girard’s distinction of novelistic works. For, each one of them reveals the
imitated nature of desire and consequently of the self. This kind of a reading
proves Girard’s claim to universality of his theory: Without taking into
consideration issues such as location, conditions, and motives of these novels,
one can argue that they all reveal the imitative nature of desire. And it is for this
very reason that one can read both Flaubert’s Emma and Uşaklıgil’s Behlül as
bovarystic characters. In this respect, aside from the the adultery theme or realist
tradition, there may be a rather more essential feature that unite these two texts.
Thus, I propose to read Aşk-ı Memnu as a continuum of the chain that
Girard emphasizes. Within such a reading, I believe that the belatedness of the
Turkish literature is not perceived as a problem. For, it does not matter which
text was written first and which one was written later; which one was the
original and which one was the imitation. More importantly, if one appreciates
these texts for the reasons why Girard praises the novelistic works, namely for
their ability to reveal the nature of desire, then the criticism is no more based
on national or cultural differences. Gürbilek argues that “we know that it is
impossible to speak of a genuine self or organic body in a culture in the big
rush to translate French works, together with the classical works that have been
models to the French themselves, where the self itself has become a noisy field
of discourse, a procession of books, a battleground of models.”190 Here
Gürbilek refers to Turkish culture, yet Girard’s theory shows us that ‘the self
itself has become a noisy field of discourse’ regardless of culture. Therefore,
instead of problematizing the belatedness of the Turkish novel and in turn,
criticizing its lack of originality, I suggest to disregard the cultural and national
differences. And instead, similar to Girard’s universal claim, I propose to add
Aşk-ı Memnu into the literary chain, consisting of Flaubert’s bovarystic
characters and Stendhal’s vaniteux, Proust’s snob as well as Dostoyevsky’s
underground man. If only national and cultural differences of the texts are

190
Gürbilek, “Dandies and Originals: Authenticity, Belatedness, and the Turkish Novel,” 616.

69
disregarded, the chain becomes “unbroken.”191 I believe Girard’s claim of
novelistic works based on their revelation of triangular desire is one possible
solution to having to distinguish “the novels of periphery and the
metropolis,”192 which would lead into a hierarchical classification of texts.
I would also like to remind that “Tanzimat writers wanted to adopt and
integrate the ‘universal’ aspects of Enlightenment thought.”193 This was also
the case for the members of Edebiyat-ı Cedide, including Uşaklıgil. Therefore,
these authors were well aware of what they were doing while they were
translating the ancient classics or French novels. Unlike Gürbilek’s claim,
these authors, including Uşaklıgil did not have anxiety. Such anxiety did not
occur until 1950’s starting from Namık Kemal and Şinasi. On the other hand,
even as their empire was falling apart, the cultural self-confidence of Tanzimat
and Edebiyat-ı Cedide writers remained. One should also keep in mind that the
very act of rewriting a prominent French novel was, in the nineteenth century
anywhere in Europe, an indication of confidence, not anxiety. Tolstoy and
Fontane display the same confidence when they re-write Flaubert. French was
the language of high culture in the 19th century. Attempting to re-write a
French novel—as opposed to translate or emulate it—indicated the argument
that one’s own language stood on a par with French. Hence, Flaubert’s
influence on Uşaklıgil’s writing may not be so different from Cervantes’
influence on Flaubert’s own writing. Again such a reading disregards the
national differences as it limits its scope on the literary sphere. And in this
reading, one can then think of inauthenticity not as a weakness, but rather as a
neccessary detour for the author to fınd his/her own voice. As Flaubert and
Uşaklıgil’s texts feature, it is not the authenticity of their characters or of the
plot that marks the distinctive features of each, but “the revelation of triangular
desire,” which is “the novelist’s supreme reward.”194

191
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 23.
192
Gürbilek, “Dandies and Originals: Authenticity, Belatedness, and the Turkish Novel,”
193
Noyon, Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil’s Hikaye (The Novel) and the Process of Modern Turkish Cultural
Transformation, 127.
194
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 22.

70
 I am aware that I have moved far away from my comparison of Emma
and Behlül. However, the similarity between the two (also between Emma and
Bihter as it will be explained later) underlines other characteristics of Girard’s
theory aside from its universality: if we analyze the creation of the characters
in Aşk-ı Memnu within the light of Girard’s understanding of novelistic works,
we can discover the common features of Madame Bovary and Aşk-ı Memnu,
not necessarily because the latter is the mere adaptation of the first one into the
Turkish-Ottoman context, and hence becoming an imitated version of
Flaubert’s text, but because of their common underlying argument that
“mimetic desire is the desire of an epoch of modern reconciliation.”195 Thus
one may suggest that the characters in Aşk-ı Memnu live in the same universe
of others including those of Emma, Charles, Don Quixote and Julien Sorel.
Even though Girard’s theory offers a different framework for
comparison, which helps to overcome the possible problems of criticism that
Gürbilek mentions, it does not fully cover the dynamics of desire as it is
featured in Madame Bovary and Aşk-ı Memnu. Let me elaborate more on this
issue as I move into my comparison of the two protagonists, Emma and Bihter.
Regarding their appearance, there is a striking similarity between Emma and
Bihter, which is their beauty. Of course, being depicted as beautiful is not
specific to these two female protagonists since “a hero is one who looks like a
hero,”196 as suggested by Warshow. In this respect, beauty is one of the most
common characteristics of a protagonist in literature and in other forms of art.
The reason why I point out Emma and Bihter’s appearance here is to challenge
Girard’s theory. For, one wonders how much Emma would achieve what she
desired if she were ugly. Similarly, it is doubtful that Adnan Bey would choose
Bihter as his second wife and mother of his children if she were not as pretty.
Hence, even though Girard does not explicitly discuss the role of appearance in
the birth of desire, in both novels the characters, especially the male ones, are
attracted to the beauty of the others.

195
Ibid., 120.
196
Warshow, The Immediate Experience, 28.

71
 As pointed out by Baruch, as the reader, we are introduced to Emma only
through the eyes of Charles, who was impressed by her beauty. Even though he
thought Emma’s hand were not beautiful, he could not stop himself from
observing every detail of her figure. On the other hand, we are also introduced
to Bihter by a third-person narrative during a daily visit to Göksu with her
mother and sister. There the main emphasis on Bihter is also on the details of
her appearance. Moreover, we know that it is Emma’s beauty that strikes
Rodolphe in their first meeting and it is Bihter’s that makes Behlül so fond of
her in the beginning of their affair. It is then possible to see another dimension
in the arousal of the characters’ desires that is not mentioned by Girard in his
theory.
The same is valid for the female characters as well. Even though both
Emma and Bihter are attracted to other features of Charles, Leon, Rodolphe,
Adnan Bey or Behlül, none of these male characters are depicted as bad
looking. Again, it is doubtful that either Emma or Bihter would choose an ugly
man as their desired object in order to fulfill their passionate dreams. In
Madame Bovary, this is explicitly mentioned: “if only somewhere there had
been for her [Emma] somebody strong and handsome, some man of valour,
ardent and tender with the heart of a poet and the body of an angel…” 197 Here,
we see that aside from a romantic, tender man, Emma certainly wants her Mr.
Right to be good looking.
Even though appearance of the desired objects in both novels take the
attention of the desiring subject as well as the mediator, it is not explicitly
discussed by Girard as one of the features that would create rivalry, jealousy or
envy between a model and a disciple. Moreover, aside from the appearance of
the object, beauty in itself may function in a way similar to the object does:
creating rivalry and the desire to be the Other. Hence, if the object is beautiful,
it may as well be the mediator for the subject; or there may be no need for a
mediator. Even though in Girard’s scheme, too, the object and the mediator
may at times be the same, beauty in specific is not included in Girard’s

197
Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 260.

72
discussion of desire. In this respect, one could argue that both Madame Bovary
and Aşk-ı Memnu suggest a different kind of anthropological assumption, lying
below Girard, namely that there are desires linked to appearance without
mediator.198
Aside from the emphasis on beauty and the appearance of the female
protagonists, many other aspects of the two novels fit into Girard’s model.
What is striking, for instance, is how the idea of marriage functions as a model.
Emma and Bihter get married with Charles and Adnan Bey respectively so that
they can fulfill their dream of marriage. The marriage itself is a model here,
because the two do not get married in order to be with their husbands, but they
are with their husbands in order to be married. Either of their marriage as
Armstrong suggests referring to Madame Bovary, is an example of loveless
marriage arrangement. Charles and Adnan Bey function as desired objects, but
what is important for Emma and Bihter, more than these men, is what they can
offer. Therefore, it is neither passion nor erotic desire that leads Emma to
Charles and Bihter to Adnan Bey, but their desire to fulfill a dream; their desire
to be someone else. As I have mentioned earlier, one common reason for
marriage is their desire for social upward mobility. Both seek upward mobility
in marriage. In Madame Bovary, Emma comes from a lower class than Charles
and this is mentioned a few times in the novel by Madame Bovary, Charles’
mother. In Aşk-ı Memnu, the class difference between Bihter and Adnan Bey is
even more explicit. For, when Bihter hears the news about Adnan Bey’s
marriage proposal, all she can think of is what this marriage can materially
provide her.
Aside from these common ones, Emma and Bihter have different reasons
for getting married. One important difference is their ideas on love. In the
beginning, being influenced from romance novels, Emma already has
passionate dreams about loving someone, who would, then, make her be like
the heroines from the novels. My comments here are not contradictory to those

198
This anthropological assumption is discussed in evolutionary aesthetics. See, for example,
Voland and Grammer’s Evolutionary Aesthetics.

73
in the previous paragraph regarding Emma’s reason to get married with
Charles: Emma does have dreams about passionate love, yet she did not have
sch dreams about Charles. She was not in love with him before they get
married. Only after marriage, she tries to fulfill these dreams by having
romantic nights with Charles. She tells sonnets, talks about romance, and she
hopes to have the romantic passion that she looks for. But, she fails. She fails,
because Charles, being too satisfied with what he already has, does not
acknowledge any of Emma’s dreams.
Initially, Emma believes that marriage may be a possibility to fulfill her
desire to be like the heroines in romance novels and to run away from her
boring life in her father’s farm. For Bihter, on the hand, love does not play any
role in her decision to get married with Adnan Bey. What is important to her at
that point is the life that Adnan Bey will provide. Moreover, being the wife of
such a respected man, Bihter thinks, would take away the burden of being
Firdevs Hanım’s daughter. Bihter’s expectation from marriage, unlike
Emma’s, is more financial than emotional. When she finds about about Adnan
Bey’s proposal, Bihter immediately starts to think about the expensive things
she would buy.
So far, we have explored the possible reasons why these women get
married. Now let us take a look at their feelings toward their husbands during
their marriage. According to Emma, Charles is dull, and incapable of satisfying
her needs and desires. Living in Yonville, each day Emma has to face the
boredom of provincial life more and more. Bihter, on the other hand, respects
Adnan Bey even though she does not love him. Unlike Emma, who is
financially and emotionally dissatisfied in her marriage, Bihter’s is more of
sexual unfulfillment. Let us compare these two phrases:

Charles’s talk was flat as a city pavement trodden by all men’s thoughts
dressed in the clothes of every day. They could not rouse emotion in her, nor
laughter, nor excuse for dreams. He had never, he told her, felt any
temptation, when he lived in Rouen, to see the Paris actors in the local theatre.
He could not swim or fence or shoot with the pistol, and once, when, in a tale,
she came upon a term of horsemanship, he could not tell her what it meant.
But a man, surely, should be all-knowing, should excel in multiple activities,

74
 be capable of initiating his wife into the violence of passion, the refinements
of life, and all the mysteries of existence? Charles, however, taught her
nothing, knew nothing, desired nothing. He thought her happy, and she
resented his assured tranquility, his ponderous peace of mind, the very
199
happiness she brought him. (MB, 36).

In the above quotation, one can see Emma’s humiliation of Charles. She does
not respect Charles, because he is not able to fulfill any of her expectations.
Even though this is only from Emma’s point of view, from the very beginning of
the novel, Charles is depicted as an anti-hero, in a way that almost excuses
Emma’s adultery. The novel starts with Charles’ school days and from the first
chapter onwards we are informed how much trouble he had at school, then
during the years while he was studying medicine. His disinterest and difficulty
in his studies and his dependence on his mother is explained. It is his mother
who decides with whom Charles would marry the first time. Similarly, in his
first marriage, it is his wife who controls him. Although Emma tries to love her
husband for sometime, she never manages to do so, and it is through Emma’s
thoughts on Charles, which were quoted in the above, that one understands why
Emma is so unsatisfied in her marriage. That is why, I believe, Leon is so
desirable for Emma. However, it is Rodolphe not Leon, who would bring her
closer to her mediator (Paris). Hence it is Rodolphe who functions as a desired
object according to Girardian scheme. What attracks Emma to Leon is rather a
textual mediator. Therefore, the arousal of Emma’s feelings for Leon is less
erotic than intellectual. After she meets Leon in Yonville, she is finally able to
share her ideas of novels and music with someone. And as the two get mental
satisfaction from their conversations, their life in Yonville becomes more
interesting until Leon moves out. Until here, there is no mention of Emma’s
sexual dissatisfaction in her marriage. On the other hand, in Aşk-ı Memnu,
Bihter’s unhappiness is directly linked with her sexual unfulfillment.
Even though Bihter realizes soon after her marriage that it does not
satisfy her expectations, she does not lose her respect for Adnan Bey. Even
though Uşaklıgil does not give us too much information about Adnan Bey, we at

199
Madame Bovary, French or English version!

75
least know that Bihter respects him very much. Her problem occurs in the
bedroom, where she is expected to give her soul and body to her husband:
Sie war seine Freundin. Für diese Mann empfand sie in ihrem Herzen
Hochachtung, ja sogar Zuneigung. Dennoch konnte sie nicht in aller
Ergebenheit des Geistes seine Frau warden. Außer in diesem Zimmer
liebkoste er sie auch an anderen Orten. Wenn sie zusammen unterwegs waren,
wenn sie in dem kleinen Zimmer unten saßen, sogar in seinem Zimmer. Ja, in
dem Zimmer direct nebenan. In Bihter war die Lust erwacht, sich an ihn zu
schmiegen, ihm so nahe wie möglich zu sein […] Wenn ihre ganze Ehe so
weitergegangen wäre, wenn er sie in reiner, makelloser Zuneigung geliebt
hätte, wäre sie glücklich gewesen. Aber er verlangte mehr von ihr. Er wollte
keine Zuneigung, sondern Liebe, die nicht erwiderte Liebe, diese Liebe, die
sie nicht zurückgeben konnte, zu Recht von ihr verlangt wurde, ohne dass sie
sich verweigern konnte, schien ihr ein Teil ihres Körpers, ihres Herzens
weggerissen zu werden. Da war ihr zum Weinen und Klagen zu Mute, und sie
wand sic hunter ihrem Kummer (VL, 174-175).200

We see that Bihter is sexually frustrated in her marriage. It is in the sphere of her
bedroom that she feels irritated by Adnan Bey and not other times, when they
are in public. However, it takes her a year to confess this frustration to herself.
And she does so, only after she sees Behlül and Peyker at the picnic, where they
are staging a picture of erotic love. As explained before, here, too, the Girardian
triangular takes form among Peyker, Behlül and Bihter.
As Emma in Madame Bovary and Bihter in Aşk-ı Memnu realize their
respective disappointment in marriage, they start having new desires. For
Emma, the search for love loses its intensity as a result of her unhappiness in
marriage although it does not seize until the very end of the novel. In Baruch’s
words, “Emma Bovary’s entire life is taken up by the fantasy of Monsieur Right,
so that even after she has made the choice […] she is still searching.”201 As a
result of this search, she first of all, has an intellectual affair with Leon and then

200
“Onun dostuydu, evet bu adam için kalbinde derin bir hürmet, hatta bir muhabbet vardı.
Lakin onun bütün ruh teslimiyetiyle karısı olamıyordu. Bu odadan başa yerlerde onu seviyordu.
Beraber gezerken, aşağıda o küçük odada otururken, hatta onun odasında, evet şu yanı
başlarındaki odada, Bihter’de bir sokulmak, onun mümkün mertebe yakınında bulunmak
hevesleri uyanırdı […] Bütün izdivaç hayatı böyle geçseydi, onu lekesiz arızasız bır muabbetle
sevecekti, mesut olacaktı. Lakin ondan fazla bir şey, muabbet değil aşk isteniyordu ve kendisini
tamamıyla haksız, insafsız bulmakla beraber bu aşkı veremiyordu. O zaman bu aşk bu
verilmeyen, verilemeyen aşk , kendisinden direnilemeyen bir hakla alındıkça, vücudundan,
kalbinden bir şey gasp etmiş zanneder, ağlamak, feryat etmek, ıstırabından kıvranmak isterdi”
Aşk-ı Memnu, 204-205.
201
Baruch, Women, Love and Power, 128.

76
with Rodolphe. In the beginning of her marriage as well as in both of her affairs,
Emma has a similar desire: “it isn’t even that the ‘selfish’ Madame Bovary
wants to be loved. What she wants is to give love to a man who is worthy of
her.”202 Here, there is a crucial difference between the beginning of Emma and
Bihter’s adulterous affairs: each time, Emma hopes and thinks that the man she
is with is worthy of her. And only after being with him she realizes that he is
not. This is valid for Charles, Leon, and especially for Rodolphe. In Aşk-ı
Memnu, on the other hand, Bihter knows that Behlül is not worthy of her. She is
not in love with him either. Her desire and passion increase gradually only after
she starts an affair with Behlül. In Madame Bovary, too, Emma believes in her
own romantic story about Rodolphe. But she realizes sooner that he is not her
‘Prince Charming’- to use Baruch’s phrase. Her suicide, as will be shown later,
is not related with her erotic desire towards any of the men, whereas Bihter’s is
inextricably linked with her passionate (also mimetic and imitated) desire for
Behlül. Therefore, we see that Emma commits adultery because she wants to
love, whereas Bihter loves because she commits adultery. In this respect, in her
second adulterous affair, Emma fulfills her desire to be someone else, to be like
the heroines of romance novels. By being with her desired object, Rodolphe, she
gets closest to her external mediator:

Then she called to mind the heroines of the books that she had read; the
lyrical legion of those adulterous ladies sang in her memory as sisters,
enthralling her with the charm of their voices. She became, in her own person,
a living part, as it were, of that imaginary world. She was realizing the long
dream of her youth, seeing herself as one of those great lovers whom she had
so much envied. But that was not her only feeling. In what had happened she
saw vengeance gratified. She had had more than her share of suffering! Now,
at last, she had triumphed, and love, so long repressed, leapt like a living
fountain in her heart, bubbling upward in ecstatic freedom. She reveled in it
without remorse, without disquiet, without anxiety.203

Here we see what Emma has finally achieved to feel by being with Rodolphe.
One can argue that Emma tried to do the same when she got married with
202
Baruch, Women, Love and Power, 128.
203
Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 146- italics added.

77
Charles, but Charles never told her the romantic words that she was expecting to
hear. Rodolphe, on the other hand, knows what Emma desires and behaves
according to her expectations. For Rodolphe and Behlül, Emma and Bihter have
similar roles in their lives: they desire these women bcause they are beautiful;
they fulfill their desires; and gradually these men get tired of the constant
attention they get. Similar to the relationship between Bihter and Behlül, as it
was described in the last section of the previous part, Rodolphe and Emma’s
affair, too, can be interpreted by Girard’s metaphorical use of Hegelian master-
slave relationship. Here I will not go into the details of this relationship, but in
order to remind its formation, I would like to give a quotation from a short
article by Girard, “Pride and Passion,” in which he had his initial arguments on
the nature of desire, prior to the publication of Deceit, Desire and the Novel:

The erotic relationship has turned into a battle of equal and identical
selves trying to undo each other in their display of callousness and
insensitivity. Since the two partners are haunted by the same mirage of
divine autonomy, the first who reveals his desire will never be desired
and he will see his dependence turn into utter enslavement.204

Similar to Bihter’s erotic relationship with Behlül, one may argue that Emma
loses Rodolphe for revealing her desires too much. And similarly to Behlül,
Rodolphe stops desiring Emma. Both men gradually start to think that the
female protagonists are no different from any other women although in the
beginning of their affairs, Rodolphe thought of Emma and Behlül of Bihter as a
goddess. One difference that should be mentioned is Emma’s feelings toward
Rodolphe. Even though Emma suffers for a long time after Rodolphe leaves her,
she soon recovers, especially after she starts another affair with Leon. On the
other hand, Bihter’s dependence “turn[s] into utter enslavement”205 until the
very end of the novel. Her dependency has also a crucial role in her suicide,
whereas Emma’s suicide is linked with other reasons. We will come back to this
issue later. Now let us go back to Emma’s marriage:

204
Girard, “Pride and Passion”, 6.
205
Ibid.

78
 Regarding Emma’s marriage, one can argue that as soon as marriage
becomes associated with romantic passion, the disappointment model arises.
Such a model does not only cause Emma to have adulterous affairs but also to
look for other fulfillments. It is precisely for this reason that Lheureux becomes
so successful in seducing Emma with all the expensive objects he brings from
Paris. According to Tanner,

what he [Lheureux] is proposing, quiet implicitly of course, is that Emma can

fill the gaps of desire with materials and things. He is in fact the most
dangerous seduction for Emma, for he works by trying to transform the
vagueness and indistinctness of erotic-emotional desire into a specific greed
for an infinity of unnecessary commodities.206

It is possible to realize a shift in Emma and Bihter’s desires as Madame Bovary

and Aşk-ı Memnu develop. For Bihter, the result of her disappointment in
marriage affects her desires in a rather opposite way than Emma’s. Bihter’s
marriage, unlike Emma’s has already provided her with “an infinity of
unnecessary commodities” – to use Tanner’s phrase. This was the main reason
why Bihter married to Adnan Bey, in the first place. Emma’s reason for
marriage, on the other hand, was her idea of romantic passion even if not her
romantic passion for Charles. Being dissatisfied with what Adnan Bey has
provided her, Bihter realizes that material goods are not enough. It is in this
condition that she starts appreciating love more. Hence, due to her experiences
in marriage, Emma and Bihter’s desires are shifted. It is now Bihter who dreams
of romantic passion and Emma who needs “marchandises”.207 Only after a year
in her marriage, Bihter realizes that, what she needs is not merchandise, but
passion.
What follows Bihter’s realization is the part where she discovers herself
in the mirror prior to her adultery. In his analysis, Tony Tanner points out the
mirror scenes in Madame Bovary which I believe to be similarly functioning in
Aşk-ı Memnu. Tanner argues that:

206
Tanner, Adultery in the Novel, 297.
207
Ibid.

79
 there are three times of particular significance when Emma looks into her
mirror. The first is a period prior to her adultery, when she took joy in saying,
“I am a virtuous woman” and in contemplating on her own attitudes of
resignation in the mirror; the second is this moment, after her first adultery;
and the third, the moment before her death. “In a clear voice she asked for her
mirror, and remained bowed over it for some time, until big tears began to
trickle out of her eyes.” These self-reflexive efforts at self-definition, Emma
trying to find herself in the image in the mirror, are solitary “reflections” of
her attempts to locate and define herself among others, in what seems to be
the available roles and poses offered by marriage and adultery.208

As Tanner argues, there are three major scenes where Emma looks into the
mirror. In Aşk-ı Memnu, on the other hand, there are two scenes when Bihter
sees her reflection in the mirror and one final attempt of fully seeing herself
before her suicide, which is interrupted as Adnan Bey keeps knocking on her
door. The first is also prior to her adultery, right after she hears about Adnan
Bey’s proposal and just like Emma, who takes joy in being a virtuous woman,
she takes joy in saying that she, too, will be a virtuous woman, unlike her
mother, by being Adnan Bey’s wife. The second is the moment, when she
realizes what lacks in her life and she looks at her body as if it were someone
else’s. This second mirror scene is when her mediated desire comes into
existence and her final attempt to look in the mirror marks the final affect of this
desire. Yet, this time, unlike Emma, she has no time to see herself one last time.
Bihter’s suicide happens too quickly, whereas Emma dies gradually. Even
though Emma suffers more as she dies, I argue that Bihter’s suicide is more
tragic than hers. One reason is due to the quickness of her death. For, Emma’s
decision is more accurate and Bihter’s is taken only in the very end, when she
sees that there is no other way for her.
Neither of the characters is afraid to be marked as an adulterous woman.
Emma’s main reason for suicide is rather financial than emotional. As Tanner
rightly argues, “Flaubert has Emma die less as a result of adultery than of
debt.”209 Moreover, Emma dies because she realizes that she will never be able
to fulfill her desires. Even though she has tried to imitate the heroines of the

208
Tony Tanner, Adultery in the Novel, 309.
209
Ibid., 82.

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novels she reads, she discovers through her marriage and affairs that she will
never be one of them. “Emma found in adultery nothing but the platitudes of
marriage.”210 Therefore, Emma’s suicide is more because of her realization of
disillusionment. In this sense, Emma gradually loses her imitated desires, and
when there is no desire left, she kills herself. On the other hand, for Bihter, her
mimetic desire is at its peak. She kills herself because she does not want to let
Nihal possess her object, Behlül. As Girard claims, “death is a supreme goal of
desire,”211 and for Bihter, too, death becomes her ultimate goal of her desire. In
this respect, one can argue that before Emma dies, she faces the mimesis of her
desire. On the other hand, Bihter dies because she wants to prevent Behlül from
marrying Nihal. Even though it is Beşir who reveals the whole truth to everyone,
most importantly to Adnan Bey, this does not play a role in Bihter’s suicide. She
is not scared that her affair with Behlül will be revealed. Even before Beşir tells
the story to Adnan Bey, Bihter tells everything to her mother so that Firdevs
Hanım can prevent Behlül and Nihal’s marriage. What we see here is the final
form of imitated desire: Bihter accepts to be defeated against her mother in order
to win over Nihal. And when she realizes that it is too late, her death becomes
inevitable.
This brings us to the end of the novel, which fits into Girard’s claims
about novelistic conclusions for two main reasons. One is Nihal’s return to her
childhood and the other is Bihter’s suicide. What we are left with in the end is
the resurrection of Nihal and the death of Bihter. As Nihal returns to a life
similar to the one prior to Bihter’s appearance in the mansion, the novel
announces The Past Recaptured. In this respect, Nihal’s development is never
completed and it is for this reason that Aşk-ı Memnu is an aborted Bildung. Even
though Nihal becomes more similar to Bihter throughout the novel as she
imitates her mediator in many aspects, in the end she is relieved from this
imitation. Bihter’s suicide, on the other hand, also underlines a novelistic
conclusion. For, her suicide may be her salvation. Therefore, her death does not

210
Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 292.
211
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 287.

81
merely announce her defeat, but at the same time her victory. As Girard claims,
“the hero triumphs in defeat; he triumphs because he is at the end of his
resources; for the first time he has to look his despair and his nothingness in the
face. But this look which he has dreaded, which is the death of pride, is his
salvation.”212 Being alone in her room, Bihter, too faces her nothingness and
escapes from her pride. Until this very end, Bihter, who continues fighting
against her numerous mediators, finally gives up. In this respect, her mediated
desire seizes in her suicide. This is why her death is her salvation. At least
according to my reading of the novel since I agree with Girard’s claim that “the
conclusions of all the novels are reminiscent of an oriental tale in which the hero
is clinging by his finger-tips to the edge of a cliff; exhausted, the hero finally lets
himself fall into the abyss.”213 In this respect, unlike Nihal, the solitary hero,
who finally rejoins with others, Bihter, “gregarious hero”214 gains her solitude.
So far the focus of the comparison of the two novels has been mainly on
Girard’s idea of a mediator as well as the theme of adultery and marriage. As
Tanner claims, “René Girard identifies the unoriginality of the desire that
regards itself as original, and with some certain privileged exceptions, he locates
the source of desire in the Other as mediator.”215 As elaborated in the previous
paragraphs, it is possible to see the revelation of Girard’s argument both in
Madame Bovary and Aşk-ı Memnu. At this point, my aim is to explore the
connection between Girard’s metaphysical desire and its social construction. I
believe these two are by no means different from each other; yet the latter may
help us understand the mechanism of the mediator in Girard’s theory. Similar to
what I aim to do here, in Adultery in the Novel, Tonny Tanner makes a
connection between Girard’s insistence on the importance of a mediator and
Jacques Lacan’s emphasis on language in the birth of one’s desire. Tanner
underlines Lacan’s arguments in “The Insistence of the Letter in the
Unconscious,” and summarizes his observations as follows:

212
Ibid., 294.
213
Ibid.
214
Ibid., 295.
215
Tanner, Adultery in the Novel, 91.

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 when we do start thinking, we think in and with the discourses that were
implanted in us but were none of our making, it does make an important kind
of sense to point out that there is no prior fully constituted self that then
engages in thinking; rather the self is to a large extent constituted in and
through its engagement in the existing discourses and paradoxically,
therefore, comes into being via a medium that is precisely not itself since it
was there waiting as a system into which the self must fit in.216

Hence, it is possible to suggest that in one’s choice of a mediator, too, the

existing discourses play a crucial role. It is for this reason that even though “the
characters of Cervantes and Flaubert are imitating, or believe they are imitating,
the desires of models they have freely chosen,”217 this decision is neither free
from language nor the “system into which the self must fit in,” as Tanner clearly
explains. Then Girard’s metaphysical desire and the idea of mediator are linked
to discourses of language, which consequently constitute the social aspect of
desire. It is the characters’ engagement in this social life that determines their
choice of a mediator. Thus, even though a mediator has an important role in the
birth of desire, it is never freed from what is socially constructed. For, the self is
always in an engagement with a language, a culture, and a society. Such a claim,
I believe, does not contradict my previous remarks on Girard’s claim to
universality of this theory. Similar to the symmetrical formulation of the
triangular scheme, whose occurrence is not influenced by gender of the desiring
subject, the mechanism of a mediator functions in a same way regardless of
what language, culture or society it is part of.
What is striking in the connection between the metaphysical feature and
social construction of desire is its affect on the female characters of Madame
Bovary and Aşk-ı Memnu. Since desire is never freed from discourses, the
relationship between the model and disciple in these two novels, especially in
Aşk-ı Memnu may help us understand the gender dynamics.
The characters in Aşk-ı Memnu and Madame Bovary cannot escape the
pressure to imitate cultural conventions. As Franco Moretti claims, “in the world

216
Ibid.
217
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 5.

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 of Balzac and Flaubert the hero desires only what the world itself wishes him to
desire and according to what it prescribes.”218 Firdevs Hanım’s wish to get
married at a young age as well as Bihter and Emma’s dreams can be seen within
the light of Moretti’s aforementioned claim. For, all three initially desire
according to what the(ir) world prescribe. In Madame Bovary, Emma’s wish to
get married is not merely linked with the influence of the romance novels, but
also with her experiences at the convent and her father’s farm. Similarly, in Aşk-
ı Memnu, Bihter’s reasons to get married with Adnan Bey are not surprising at
all. On the contrary, one can even suggest that they are quiet conventional. For,
her obsession with marriage, wealth, and clothes is inextricably linked with
predetermined values of her world.
Therefore, in the beginning of the two novels, neither Emma and nor
Bihter is a controversial character. All they do is to internalize a desire, which is
already constructed by the outer world. One can say that Emma and Bihter and
Firdevs Hanım’s individual experiences in marriage function as an ultimate
model in Girardian terms. For, only after their disappointment rouses in
marriage that these characters start looking for a desired object. For Firdevs
Hanım, for instance, there are multiple objects of desire: youth, beauty, money,
Adnan Bey, and Behlül. Hers is very similar to the list of Bihter’s desired
objects. With her blonde dyed hair, clothes and obsession with youth, she is
considered as an outsider by the other characters including her daughters. For,
she does not fit into the stereotypical figure of a mother or a grandmother. Yet,
just like her daughter Bihter, in their daily visits to Göksu, Firdevs Hanım, too,
searches for a potential husband. Watching Adnan Bey’s boat passing by theirs,
Firdevs Hanım thinks that Adnan Bey wants her, not her daughter. It is because
of her jealousy towards Adnan Bey and continous desire for (another) marriage
that she starts perceiving Bihter as a potential rival, even more than before. For
the reasons that were listed previously such as their common expectations from
marriage, followed by their disappointment and adulterous tendencies, the

218
Moretti, The Way of the World, 166.

84
mother and the daughter are very much alike. Moreover, they are constant rivals
as they interchangeably become models and disciples of each other.
In Aşk-ı Memnu the mother and the daughter are constantly divided
between the compulsion of mimetic desire and the challenge of other desires, i.e.
erotic, maternal and etc., which undermine and simultaneously influence their
femininity. It is possible to see the same relationship between Bihter and Nihal,
as the stepmother and the stepdaughter. Hence, all three are very similar: Firdevs
Hanım is Bihter’s ancestral double in struggling with the models of womanhood,
and Bihter is Nihal’s. In Aşk-ı Memnu within the family circle and in the limited
space of Adnan Bey’s mansion, this web of relationships reveals the mimetic
nature of desire more explicitly than Madame Bovary.
Before moving into the conclusion remarks, I would like to mention
another difference between the two novels, which also underlines a gap in
Girard’s theory. That is the novelistic space. Girard mentions this aspect only
once when he argues that the geographical separation is a possible factor to
measure the gap between the desiring subject and the mediator.219 Aside from
this, he does not focus on the space of the novel. I argue that the space does not
only measure the gap, but also in some cases it determines the mediator and
possibly the desired object. In his analysis of Aşk-ı Memnu, Ileri compares the
novel with a few other novels of female adultery, including Madame Bovary and
Anna Karenina. Furthermore, he makes a classification among the female
protagonists and claims that Emma is not as brave as Anna and Bihter is not as
brave as Emma. Ileri bases his argument of the bravest female adulterous
according to her circulation in public space. For him, Anna is the bravest,
because regardless of what the others may say, she dares to go to the opera. For,
she is in love with Vronsky.220 Unlike Ileri, I argue that Bihter is as brave as the
other two protagonists. For, she dares to commit adultery in her husband’s
mansion. Even though Adnan Bey is sleeping in the next room, almost every
night she goes downstairs to meet Behlül. Now, why is that? In the second part,

219
Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 9.
220
Ileri, Kamelyasız Kadınlar, 210-211.

85
I asked if Bihter would have taken Behlül as Prince Charming if she had not
seen Behlül flirting with her sister. The answer was probably yes, but I argued
that her affair with him would not start that soon. One crucial reason why Bihter
would start an affair with Behlül sooner or later is linked to space of the novel.
Even though Peyker functions as a mediator while flirting with Behlül, and by
doing so, she makes Bihter realize her sexual frustration, Bihter would soon
realize Behlül as a potential object. For, aside from him, she does not have any
other options. Her life is restricted in Adnan Bey’s mansion. Whenever she goes
out of the mansion for sighseeing or shopping, someone accompanies her.
Emma, on the other hand, ventures as far as a city—she undertakes to meet her
lovers in an ever-widening geography. Emma goes to another city to meet Leon;
she secretly meets Rodolphe at nights, whereas, the majority of the plot in Aşk-ı
Memnu takes place inside one house. There is one fundamental difference
underlying all other differences—including narratological ones—between the
two novels: and that is the fact that in Aşk-ı Memnu, the women are not free to
circulate around the city. Therefore, not only the mediators but also the possible
objects of characters are also restricted by the limited space of the novel. Then
aside from different ways of revealing the important role of mediators, the
comparison of Aşk-ı Memnu and Madame Bovary underlines how these two
novels also reveal the crucial role of social construction in the birth of desire.

86
 CONCLUSION

In this study my aim has been to present a new reading of Aşk-ı Memnu
based on René Girard’s theory of triangular desire, especially as it is discussed
in his first work, Deceit, Desire and the Novel and compare this novel with
Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.
Girard uses this theory in order to make a distinction between the
romantic and novelistic works as he argues that the novelistic works are those
which reveal the presence of a mediator in the birth of desire of characters,
whereas the romantic works only reflect it. According to Girard, Cervantes,
Dostovesyky, Proust, Stendhal, Flaubert are great novelists for their ability to
reveal the truth of desire in their works. By revealing the presence of a mediator,
these authors do not only announce the existence of triangular desire, which
“transfigures its object,”221 but more importantly, by doing so, they underline the
“lie of spontenous desire” and “the same illusion of autonomy to which modern
man is passionately devoted.”222 Moreover, these great novelists “reveal the
imitative nature of desire,”223 and their works announce the important role of the
Other in the self instead of the romantics, who praise originality and spontaneity,
which Girard calls “universal dogma”224 of the nineteenth century.
One can see more about Girard’s claims in the first part of the study. In
this part, I summarized Girard’s arguments, on which I based my reading of
Aşk-ı Memnu. In the second part, I analyzed the web of relationships in Aşk-ı
Memnu by focusing mainly on Nihal, Bihter and Behlül. I tried to show that
similar to the aforementioned authors, Uşaklıgil, too, reveals the existence of a
mediator in the birth of his characters’ desires. Within the complex web of
networks in Aşk-ı Memnu, each relationship has an effect on another one. What
comes into existence as a result of this network is not only the revelation of
numerous mediators, but also the appearance of new desires which are rooted
from the combination of these mediators. Hence, it is not only one’s own
221
Girard, Deceit, Desire and The Novel, 17.
222
Ibid., 16.
223
Ibid., 15.
224
Ibid.

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mediator that creates desire of a character, but simultaneously others’ mediators,
too, give birth to the same desire. In Aşk-ı Memnu, similar to Dostoveysky’s
novels, the internal mediator which comes into existence among the family
members increase the intensity of feelings such as jeaolousy and hatred, which
arouses rivalry between the model-disciple. Consequently, this brings the novel
to its tragic end. For, it is Bihter’s rivalry with her mother and stepdaughter that
increases her desire for Behlül. And it is this ultimate desire that makes her
commit suicide. However, the novel does not only revolve around Bihter. As
Wolfgang Rieman, the translator of Aşk-ı Memnu into German, explains in his
Afterword, aside from the adulterous affair between Bihter and Behlül, the novel
features other ‘forbidden’ loves, including the one between Nihal and Adnan
Bey. According to Rieman, the relationship between the daughter and the father
can be interpreted as incest one, which is the outcome of Nihal’s unnatural
feelings towards Adnan Bey.225 Hence, instead of Forbidden Love, which the
original title means, Rieman translated Aşk-ı Memnu into German as Forbidden
Loves, Verbotene Lieben.
Even though Rieman is right in his claim that there are numerous
‘forbidden’ loves in the novel, I disagree with his claim that the relationship
between the daughter and the father is incest. For, such an interpretation
disregards the important role of Bihter in Nihal’s life. Based on Girard’s theory,
I suggested reading the relationship between the daughter and the father as the
revelation of mediation. It is true that Nihal is close to her father and loves him
very much, but this is simply due to the lack of a mother in her life. Having lost
her mother at a young age, she is very close to her father. Yet, only after Bihter
becomes part of Nihal’s life that her feelings take another form: in the triangular
formulation of the father, daughter and the stepmother, Nihal’s jealousy,
admiration and gradual hatred toward Bihter come into existence. And it is due
to this reason that her feelings for Adnan Bey seem to increase. For, now Bihter
is a rival, who threatens to possess Nihal’s beloved ones, including her brother
Bülent, the maids, and most importantly her father. In this context, Adnan Bey is

225
Rieman, Nachwort Verbotene Lieben, 466.

88
the desired object for Bihter and Nihal. However, the novel’s emphasis is not on
the relationship between the father and the daughter, but rather on the
relationship between the stepmother and the stepdaughter. Hence, it reflects
upon the dynamics of the model and the disciple. Adnan Bey is the first object
that these two rivals compete for. Later in the novel, Behlül becomes another
object as the model-disciple roles are shifted between Bihter and Nihal. In this
triangular scheme, too, Bihter and Nihal are each other’s mediators.
Going back to Rieman’s argument, there are indeed numerous
‘forbidden’ loves in Aşk-ı Memnu. And most of them reveal yet another
triangular desire. Let us think about Firdevs Hanım, for instance. As explained
earlier, from the beginning of the novel, she perceives her daughters as rivals.
Throughout the novel, Bihter becomes her ultimate rival, whereas Peyker loses
her emphasis in Firdevs Hanım’s life. This, I believe, is due to Firdevs Hanim’s
‘forbidden love’ for Adnan Bey: seeing Adnan Bey as a potential husband for
herself, Firdevs Hanım cannot accept Bihter’s marriage. Similarly, in this case,
Adnan Bey becomes the desired object for the two women. As the mother and
the daughter set up another Girardian model-disciple relationship, Firdevs
Hanım’s jealousy is directed toward Bihter not Adnan Bey. Towards the end of
the novel, similar to Bihter and Nihal, this model-relationship is shifted when
Firdevs Hanım arranges Behlül and Nihal’s engagement. Therefore, one can
even argue that it is not Bihter’s adulterous affair, but her mother’s “jealous
temperament”226 that causes Bihter’s suicide.
There are other examples of ‘forbidden love’ including Behlül’s feelings
for Peyker, a married woman as it is described in the beginning of the novel as
well as his ‘love’ for Bihter. Let me briefly mention another ‘forbidden love’
which may be the most strongest of all in the novel: Beşir’s love for Nihal. Even
though I did not focus on this relationship in greater detail in this study, I believe
it also fits into Girardian scheme quiet well. Uşaklıgil does not go into details of
Beşir’s love for Nihal. Instead he implicitly informs his reader that Beşir loves
her. His is forbidden love, because as a maid, he is in love with his master. As

226
Girard, Deceit, Deceit and the Novel, 12.

89
Nihal and Behlül decide to get married, another Girardian triangle occurs in the
end of the novel. This triangle may be one of the most crucial ones. For, before
he dies, Beşir tells Adnan Bey about Behlül and Bihter’s affair. This is Beşir’s
ultimate revenge from Behlül, his mediator. Knowing that he has no chances
with Nihal, by revealing the whole truth, he prevents Behlül from marrying
Nihal. In this respect, Beşir, the almost invisible desiring subject of the novel,
announces his victory over Behlül just before he dies. Beşir does not succeed
possessing his desired object Nihal, and he would never be able to do so. Yet, he
does not let his rival have her, either. Similar to this one, there are many other
rivalries and desires, which are born due the existence of mediators in Aşk-ı
Memnu. The main aim of this part was to point out the existence of these
‘forbidden loves.’
In the third part, I compared Aşk-ı Memnu with Madame Bovary. In the
comparative part, too, I dedicated a larger space for my discussion of Aşk-ı
Memnu than Madame Bovary. Even though, I mostly based my arguments of
Madame Bovary on Girard’s own remarks about the novel, I presented a reading
of Madame Bovary as I compared it with the Turkish novel. The reason why
Aşk-ı Memnu takes larger space in the study was due to a lack of a thorough
reading of it. Except a few studies, there was hardly any reading of the novel to
such an extend. Moreover, the limited number of the studies does not focus on
the desires of the characters per se. In his study, for instance, Berna Moran
focuses on the narrative aspects and Selim Ileri presents a socio-cultural
interpretation of the novel. Therefore, in order to compare Aşk-ı Memnu with
Madame Bovary, first of all, I had to apply Girard’s theory into my reading of
the novel. In this respect, I hope that this study fills a gap in Turkish literary
criticism not only because the novel is analyzed in depth, but also because it
presents a new approach to early modern Turkish novel. As I have tried to
present in the comparative part, the Turkish novel can also be considered as
novelistic based on Girard’s classification.
In the comparative part, I focused on three main aspects: adultery theme,
marriage and the idea of mediation. And I argued that even though there are

90
certain similarities in the plot, the two novels have distinctive features. In this
respect, it is not possible to see Aşk-ı Memnu as an adaptation of Madame
Bovary into Turkish-Ottoman context. Even though adultery is the main theme
of both novels, the way Flaubert and Uşaklıgil treat the subject is quiet different.
This difference becomes apparent in a variety of aspects, including the female
protagonists’ wish to get married, their feelings towards their husbands and their
reasons for suicide. Most importantly, in the novels’ revelation of mediators. As
pointed out throughout the study, there are many mediators in Aşk-ı Memnu,
which affect the relationship of characters. In this respect, the novel is more
tragic than Madame Bovary. For, the numerous mediators constitute different
Girardian triangular desires that simultaneously influence the model-disciple
dynamics. Who is initially a model may turn into a disciple, and who is a
disciple in one triangular formulation may be a model in another one. According
to a Girardian reading, this I believe is one of the most distinct features of Aşk-ı
Memnu. In Madame Bovary, the plot revolves around Emma’s dreams of desire
and passion. Her adulterous relationships with Leon and Rodolphe, as Girard
argues, reveal the existence of an external mediator. In Aşk-ı Memnu, the
existence of mediators is as explicit as the one in Madame Bovary, if not more.
It is for this reason that Aşk-ı Memnu, too, just like the works of Flaubert,
Proust, Stendhal, Cervantes, and Dostovesky is a novelistic one. And it is for
this reason that I suggested to place Usakligil’s novel into Girard’s chain of
novelistic works. Such a reading, which focuses merely on the novelistic space
and on the idea of mediation, disregards the historical, social and cultural
circumstances of the novels. For, it is based on Girard’s claim to universality of
his theory. Desire, regardless of these circumstances, functions in the same way,
which requires a mediator. Therefore, focusing on the notion of desire, my
reading and comparison of the two novels disregards the chronological and
hierarchical classification of literary texts. In this context, the belatedness of the
early modern Turkish novel in general and Aşk-ı Memnu in specific is not
considered to be a potential problem. The imitated characters, the borrowed
personalities, the mimetic desires within the novel and even that of the authors

91
do not signifyweakness. Instead they announce the triumph of novelistic works,
as Girard claims. I am aware that my claims may be at times too broad or rather
general. Also, much more could be said about Madame Bovary by adding into
Girard’s reading. But I hope that this study will at least open up new
opportunities for further research.
As I was writing this thesis, reading Girard and thinking about the novels
made me think about new questions. Here I would like to mention one of them.
The focus of this study was the nineteenth century and the very early twentieth
century novel. And the main theory applied was written in the 1960’s. Thinking
about desire, especially erotic desire, I think it would not be wrong to claim that
so much has changed between now and then. Globalization, mass migration,
internet, and many other progress as well as regression and new diseases such as
AIDS have influenced not only the relationship between men and women but
also the notion of desire. The new discourses, the latest technology and the
recent developments, especially in the lives of women, do not only affect the
relationships, but simultanously change the idea of marriage and family as well
as the forms of adultery. Even though Girard’s theory may still be applicable to
contemporary relationships, since the existence of mediator may be still as
important in the birth of desire, it has definitely gotten new forms. For this
reason, applying Girard’s theory into contemporary literature may provide us
insightful ideas on the revelation of a mediator in the twenty-first century novel.
As a conclusion, I would also like to go back to the beginning. In the first
page of the study, I have added a painting by Osman Hamdi, a prominent
Ottoman artist, because his portrait, “Istanbul Hanımı” (A Lady of
Constantinople) reminds of the female characters of Aşk-ı Memnu. The way the
lady in Osman Hamdi’s painting carries her veil makes me think of Nihal’s
excitement when she veils for the first time as well as Bihter and Peyker’s
endless efforts to look like a lady; more importantly to be a lady. In the novel, as
these females try to imitate each other, each has become my genuine heroines.
For, I was inspired by their bookish aspirations. I hope that the novelistic works
will keep being my mediators in the years to come…

92
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