Representations of Women : Gender Relations and The Emergence of The Processive Female Subject in Nezihe Meriç’s Hayriye and William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily

Abstract

The aim of this study to analyze, compare and contrast the representations of the two heroines in the two short stories “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “Hayriye” (an eponymous title) by a contemporary, Turkish woman writer Nezihe Meriç (1925-2009) from French feminist perspectives in terms of gender relations. The representations of the heroines, Emily and Hayriye, are analyzed in terms of gender relations from French feminist perspective, referring to the theories of Cixous, Irigaray and Kristeva. The transgressive attitude of both heroines who subvert patriarchy have been analyzed in terms of “laughter”, subject-in-=process, abject, jouissance, mimesis and the concept of the other, associated with body as a body language through which women exert power and constitute themselves as processive subjects to influence others such as Meriç’s heroine, Hayriye who influences all her neighbours in the story. The depiction of the two heroines from two different perspectives, namely, patriarchal and female, have also been analyzed and emphasized in the study.