You are here

Home » Content

SUFİ ÖĞRETİSİNİ HATIRLAMA YOLUNDA: DORİS LESSİNG’İN CEHENNEME İNİŞ İÇİN BRİFİNG ROMANINDA İKİLİ KARŞITLARIN YIKIMI

TOWARDS REMEMBERING THE SUFI PHILOSOPHY: DECONSTRUCTION OF BOUNDARY OPPOSITIONS IN DORIS LESSING’S BRIEFING FOR A DESCENT INTO HELL

Journal Name:

  • Pamukkale Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi

Publication Year:

  • 2015
DOI: 
10.5505/pausbed.2015.44154

Key Words:

Keywords (Original Language):

Author NameUniversity of Author
Abstract (2. Language): 
The aim of this article is to investigate how in her novel, Briefing for a Descent into Hell, Doris Lessing deconstructs binary oppositions. In the novel, it is argued that the previous descenders of God are sent to earth to spread the Sufi motto, “Life is one”, but the humankind forget the given knowledge in the course of life. Failing to perform God’s message, the society begin to act as individuals and create social boundaries gradually. In Lessing’s novel, the main character, Charles Watkins, descents into madness and retrieves the Sufi Knowledge as the previous messengers did. His descend into madness enables him to explore the blind spots in ideologies and their impacts on his identity. Although Watkins has to return to his old habits and social life through electric shock in the ending, it can be argued that Watkins acknowledges the importance of both the ordinary truth and the inner truth through his experience of Platonic immanence and transcendence simultaneously. Together with this, the letters sent to Watkins would enable the readers to see and question the inner workings of ideological indoctrination of war, language, science and education. In this article, utilizing from Platonic, Jungian, Irigarian and Derrida’s similar theories on boundary oppositions, it will be argued that Watkins undermines Plato’s hierarchical dualism between phenomenal and material world so as to realize “transcendent function” in Jungian sense and recalls the forgotten Sufi doctrine called “oneness”.
Bookmark/Search this post with
Abstract (Original Language): 
Bu makalenin amacı, Doris Lessing’in romanı, Cehenneme İniş için Açıklama ’da ikili karşıtlıkları nasıl yıktığını araştırmaktır. Romanda, tanrının Sufi sloganı olan, “Hayat Birdir”, öğretisini yaymak için insanları önceden dünyaya gönderdiği, fakat insanların yaşam döngüsü içinde verilen bilgiyi unuttuğu tartışılmaktadır. Tanrının mesajını yerine getirmeyen insanlık, zaman içinde birey olarak hareket etmeye ve ikililik oluşturmaya başlamaktadır. Lessing’in romanında, Charles Watkins delirir ve tanrının diğer peygamberleri gibi Sufi öğretisine erişir. Delirmesi, Watkins’in ideolojilerdeki kör noktaları ve bunların insanların kimliğindeki etkisini keşfetme fırsatına sahip olmasını sağlar. Her ne kadar romanın sonunda, elektrik şoku verilmesiyle eski alışkanlıklarına ve sosyal yaşamına geri dönse de, Watkins’in zihinsel yolculuğu, onun Plato’un dünyevi ve fenomenal dünyasını aynı anda tecrübe etmesini, böylece hem sıradan ve hem de içsel gerçeğin önemini anlamasını sağlayarak iç görü kazanmasını sağlamıştır. Bununla birlikte, Watkins’e gönderilen mektuplar, okuyucunun, beyin yıkayan; savaş, dil, bilim ve eğitim gibi ideolojik kavramların altında yatanları görmesini ve sorgulamasını sağlar. Bu makalede, Plato, Jung, Irigiray ve Derrida’nın ikili karşıtlıklar üzerine olan teorilerini ele alarak, Watkins’in Plato’a ait kuramda geçen fenomenal ve dünyevi arasındaki hiyerarşik ikiciliği yıkarak Jung’a ait “transendant fuction’ ını” gerçekleştirmesi ve unutulmuş olan,“ birlik/ bütünlük ”anlamındaki sufi öğretisini hatırlamayı amaçladığı tartışılmaktadır.
FULL TEXT (PDF): 
PDF icon pausbed-44154-research_article-gundogdu.pdf
  • 21
1
9
  • Turkish

REFERENCES

References: 

Abel, Elizabeth. ( 1986). “ The Golden Notebook: ‘ Female Writing’ and ‘ The Great Tradition.”
in Critical Essays on Dorris Lessing, (Ed. Claire Spraguge and Tiger). Boston, G.K, Hall.
Bazin, Nancy Topping. (1980). “Androgony or Catasrophe: The Vision of Dorris Lessing’s Later
Novels”. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 5/3, 10-15.
Canters, Hanneke, and Grace M. Antzen. (2005). Forever Fluid: A Reading of Luce Irigaray’s Elemental
Passions. New York: Manchester University Press.
Derrida, Jacques. (2013). Of Grammatology. U.S.A.: JHU Press.
---. (1981). Dissemination. Trans. Barbara Johnson. London: Anthlone Press.
Foucault, Michel. (1977). “What Is an Author?” in Michel Foucault, Language, Counter Memory,
Practice, (Ed. Donald F. Bouchard). New York: Cornell University Press.
Hardin, Nancy Shields. (1973). “Dorris Lessing and the Sufi Way”. Contemporary Literature. 14/4,
566.581.
Haynes, Patrice. (2012). Immanent Transcendence: Reconfiguring Materialism in Continental
Philosophy. New York: Bloomsburry.
Jung, Carl G. (2014). Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 7: Two Essays in Analytical Psychology.
U.S.A.: Princeton University Press.
Kohlenberger. John. R. ( 2004). The Essential Evangelical Parallel Bible: New King James Version,
English Standard Version, New Living Translation, the Message. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Lessing, Dorris. (1971). Briefing for a Descent into Hell. New York: Vintage.
---. (1977) “Preface to the Golden Notebook”. in The Novel Today: Contemporary
Writers on Modern Fiction. (Ed. Malcolm Bradbury). Great Britain: Manchester University Press.
Miller, Jeffrey. C. (2004). The Transcendent Function: Jung’s Model of Psychological Growth through
Dialogue with the Unconscious. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Nicholls, Angus James. (2006). Goethe’s Concept of the Daemonic: After the Ancients. U.S.A.: Camden
House.
Pickett, Brent. (2006). On the Use and Abuse of Foucault for Politics. UK: Lexington.
Plato. (2003). The Republic. London: Penguin Book
---. The Symposium. Harmondsworth, London: Penguin Books,1975.
Rubenstein, Roberto. (2003). Briefing for a Descent into Hell by Doris Lessing. (Ed. Harold
Bloom). Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers.
Shah, Idries. (2004). The Way of the Sufi. Great Britain: The Octagon Press.
--- (1999). The Sufis. Great Britain: The Octagon Press.
Singer,J. (1972). Boundaries of the Soul. New York, Anchor Books/ Doubleday.
Stone, Alison. (2007). An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy. UK: Polity Press.
Şavkay, Canan. (2010). Lessing’s Engagement with Platonic idealism in Briefing for a Descent into
Hell. Dorris Lessing Studies. 29/1, 9-13.
Toit, Du Louise. (2009). A Philosophical Investigation of Rape: The Making and Unmaking of
the Feminine Self. New York: Routledge.
Whitehead, Anne. (2009). Memory. New York: Routledge.
Ch’en, Kenneth Kuan Shêng. (1968). Buddhism: The Light of Asia.
Barron’s Educational Series, New York
Waugh, Winston E. (2005). Sufism. U.S. A: Xulon Press,

Thank you for copying data from http://www.arastirmax.com