Religious-mystical searches in Peyami Safa's novel “Mademoiselle Noraliya's Armchair”

Abstract

The Turkish novel, which developed dynamically at the beginning of the 20th century, was rich in
facts and multifaceted. There is variety in the topics addressed, the writers devoted special space to the
problems arising from the realities of life and time. At this stage, one of the main literary trends in the
development of Turkish novels was the increase in psychological and philosophical themes, the human
concept coming to the fore. This problem was a leitmotif, especially in Peyami Safa's work. His works were
dominated by psychoanalytical analysis, subconscious traumas, religious-mystical tendencies, and
metaphysical searches. Peyami Safa, who raised the Turkish psychological novel to the stage of renaissance,
has a special place in the novel “Mademoiselle Noraliya's Armchair”. As in the novels “The Ninth Surgery
Department”, “A Novel of a Hesitation”, “We Are Lonely”, the human concept is brought to the fore in this
work, and human psychology is analyzed down to the smallest details. From this point of view, the novel of the writer involved in the research is relevant and important. In the work, the human being is approached
from a philosophical-psychological aspect and descends to deeper spiritual layers, the mental-psychological
upheavals, hallucinations, fears, hesitations of the image, in a word, subconscious traumas, the philosophy of
life or death, and most importantly, the search for truth and spiritual travel is reflected in a unique way.
These searches go beyond time and gain metaphysical depth. The work, which combines tradition and
innovation, is also important in terms of reflection of Sufi-philosophical ideas. In the article, the mentioned
novel of the writer was analyzed in the context of Sufi-philosophical, religious-mystical researches, and was
subjected to psychoanalytical analysis.