Elif Shafak's the bastard of Istanbul : a feminist approach

Abstract EN

The present paper argues that Zeliha, the heroine of the novel The Bastard of Istanbul represents a perfect sample of a modern woman inside the new developed society in Turkey.

She strives to find herself a space in a patriarchal society and proves herself as an independent individual who has the ability and potentiality to plan, inspire, and accomplish her aims creatively.

It argues also that she changes the result of that disgusted event which took place earlier in her life into a successful and prosperous project, despite all those terrible difficulties and obstacles she has faced in her life.

She breaks down all that false customs and ideologies which portrayed women as fragile.

She erases that tendentious and negative image which sees women as indolent, ignorant and weak.

She destroys that biased perspectives which conceive woman as the 'Other' and as a commodity used just for breeding and childcare in the patriarchal society.