Politics, Incarceration, and Innocence in Harold Pinter’s One for the Road and Melih Cevdet Anday’s İçerdekiler

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 2 Sayı: 1, 32 - 52, 16.03.2024

Murathan Gündoğdu

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10829685

Öz

This study aims to compare two political plays, Harold Pinter’s One for the Road (1984) and Melih Cevdet Anday’s İçerdekiler (1965) with a focus on their thematic presentations of political oppression, incarceration and innocence. Influenced by different turning points in Turkish political history, both plays exhibit striking resemblances in depicting political oppression which includes physical and psychological torture, and the reality of incarceration that is experienced by innocent individuals who merely use their freedom of opinion and speech. Presenting critical reactions against the political injustices leading to the victimisation of innocent people, both plays display how political power is manipulated in the hands of the oppressors. The first part of this study examines both Pinter’s and Anday’s political views and criticism as well as their motives for writing the plays under discussion. In the second part, this study compares the two plays mainly in terms of their treatment of oppression and acts of cruelty against innocent individuals, concluding that the plays show similarities as both playwrights manage to demonstrate a universally horrifying picture of incarceration.

Anahtar Kelimeler

One for the Road, İçerdekiler, Oppression, Incarceration, Harold Pinter, Melih Cevdet Anday

Kaynakça

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