Hanife (2010), is one of the famous short stories of Sevgi Soysal who was a Turkish- German female writer and was imprisoned for political reasons, during a military coup in Turkey in 1971. Soysal deals with the issue of honour killing by examining the different perception of honour and its importance and the place of women in the view of society, through the symbolism of the images such as the poplar tree and the brook.
Briefly, Hanife is a 15 years old girl who was engaged to Mustafa when she was a child by her family. When she grew, her life goal was being the wife of the governor, which means having money and higher status than her brother and Hasan, who wanted to be with her although she did not. Therefore, Hasan beat …show more content…
When she was murdered, the water of the brook is contaminated by her blood. However, the water gets its original form like nothing ever happened until be raped with the blood of next victim. In conclusion, people lose their human rights and lives because of the wrong honour sense. Women, who are seen as second-rate humans, cannot control their lives and their deaths. On the other hand, men who act as guardians of the system are deprived of emotional relationships. The wounds caused by honour killings could be closed by education. Moreover, changing sense of honour may prevent honour killings.
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References
Doğan, R. (2011). Is Honor Killing a “Muslim Phenomenon”? Textual Interpretations and Cultural Representations. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 31(3), 423-440. doi:10.1080/13602004.2011.599547
Soysal, S. (2010). Hanife. In A. N. Eken, B. Rodrigues, H. G. Atabaş, J. Harris, M. Güçeri, M. L. Bilgiç, S. Tack & Z. İ. Önel, Contemporary issues in focus (pp.457-463). Harlow: Pearson Custom