Space-Individual Relationship in The Aslı Erdoğan’s Story, Mucizevi Mandarin

Urbanization, which started with the Industrial Revolution and accelerated after the World War II and accordingly capitalist system create a new lifestyle. First of all, the metropolitan situation which is seen in Europe takes human in center with humanity effect and promises the best life that he or she deserves, provided that she or he serves the system. After a while, this new lifestyle makes the individual a slave of the system and thus it leads to becoming introvert and alienation from self and the environment. Considering the interaction of literature and social life, from the 1950s, the new life style and person type in literary works have turned into the basic space and personality of novel art. In “Mucizevi Mandarin” written by Aslı Erdoğan (1967 - ?), the city, which is often addressed with modernist and existentialist tendencies, is used effectively throughout the story. The place of city life in the modernist understanding, the effects of natural and artificial spaces on human being in relation to man and environment have been examined by taking into consideration their way of usage in the work. The fact that the author has evaluations that expand from the individual to the societiy, shows that there is a close relationship between psychology and the social/sociological environment. In the Mucizevi Mandarin, considering the comparison of the Eastern-Western society in the social and individual contexts and the perception of the individual-environment with a female point of view gave the experiences a more sensuous structure. Considering the physical and psychological violence, and financial problems that women are exposed today, it is another remarkable aspect of the work that the story taking into consideration through women’s perception and sensitivity. The spiritual agonies that the narrator have lived from the childhood to the age of maturity and youthfulness of the narrator are made clearly felt, therefore the reader has the opportunity to criticize the view of women in the sociological context in social structure. With this work, it was aimed to analyze the work by concentrating on the space-human relation of Aslı Erdoğan s Mucizevi Mandarin story. Firstly, the sensation of space in human, the effect of place and human on each other and the place of space types in literary work are emphasized. Then, as a novel/story element, the transformation of spaces in the historical process and the reflections in the work have been touched. So, the thematic structure in the work, fictionalization of plot and space’s effect on characterization method have been considered. As a result of analysis made in this direction, it is observed that space has more influence on existence, alienation and longing for home in the story.