Karanlık Ormanda: Edward Bond Şiirlerinde “Deliliğimizin İşaretleri”ni Okumak

Year 2019, Volume: 18 Issue: 2, 709 - 723, 01.04.2019

Şafak Altunsoy

https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.428965

Abstract

Aktivist, oyun yazarı ve şair olarak Edward Bond
(1934-), bireyi tebaaya dönüştürüp baskı altına alan bir silsile konusunda
bilinç uyandırmak için edebiyatın pratik gücünden yararlanır. Şiirlerinde
toplum ve bu toplumun belli güç yapıları tarafından düzenlenişine odaklanması
her gün maruz kaldığı sosyal mekanizmaların güncel durumunu yansıtır. Bu
bakımdan Karanlık Ormanda, tabiiyet
süreci veya Althusser’in ifadesiyle ‘bireylerin çağırılması’ üzerine Bond’un
çeşitli vesilelerle dillendirdiği fikirlerinin en güzel örneğidir. Çalışma,
Althusser’in ideoloji tartışması ve ideolojinin çeşitli aygıtlar vasıtasıyla
nasıl tabiiyet kurduğunu seçilen şiirler aracılığıyla değerlendirmeye
çalışmaktadır. Çalışma ayrıca, Bond tarafından kullanılan mecazi bir dil ve çok
katmanlı imgelem aracılığıyla bu devlet aygıtlarının görünürlük/ görünmezlik
ikiliği üzerine yoğunlaşmaktadır. Şiirler kişisel olanla kamusal olanı
birleştirdiğinden politik duruşları da bütünlük ve huzur’a bir kişisel özlemi
göstermektedir. Böylece şiirler iyimserlik ve kötümserlik arasında gidip
gelmektedir, fakat sonunda tabiiyet süreci kaçınılmaz olduğundan karamsar bir
hava hâkimdir. Tebaa karşı duruşunu veya Althusserci ‘kötü vatandaş’lığını onu
sistemin içinde tutan ancak nasıl çalıştığı bilgisini de ona sunan bir bilinçle
başarmaktadır.

Keywords

Edward Bond, Althusser, Ideology, subject, power relations, state apparatuses.

In the Dark Forest: An Althusserian Reading of Edward Bond’s Poems

Abstract

As an activist, a playwright and a poet, Edward Bond (1934-) avails himself of literature’s power for practical purposes in order to raise awareness of a chain structure which entraps and subjugates the individuals by transforming them into mere subjects. Bond’s focus on society and its arrangement by certain power structures in his poems reflects the current state of the social mechanisms that he is exposed to every day. In the Dark Forest, in this respect, is an epitome of Bond’s ideas consistently verbalized through various mediums of expression on the subjection process or ‘interpellation’ of individuals in Althusser’ words. As the title of the poetry collection implicates, Bond depicts different levels of tension in a bleak atmosphere created by corporeal and psychological variations of violence through his poems. This study tries to evaluate Althusser’s argument of ideology and the apparatuses through which ideology sustains its ascendancy over the subjects by analyzing Bond’s selected poems. The study also concentrates on the duality of in/visibility of the state apparatuses in the poems by means of multilayered imagery and metaphorical language employed by Bond. Since the poems merge the private realm into the public sphere, their political stance also denotes a personal yearning for unity and peace. Thus, the poems vacillate between optimism and pessimism, but in the end, a dark atmosphere prevails since the subjection process is inevitable and subject can only achieve his resistance or Althusserian ‘bad citizenship’ only through a consciousness which keeps him in the system but with the knowledge of how it operates.

Keywords

Edward Bond, Althusser, Ideology, subject, power relations

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