A‘mâk-ı Hayâl Romanında “Mise En Abyme”

Abstract

In heraldry “mise en abyme” is described as a smaller shield bearing the same ensign inside the big one, and it literally means “to put in the infinite abyss”. André Gide introduced mise en abyme to literature inspired by the effect of reflection and depth in the visual arrangement of heraldic. He expanded the framework of the concept with different contexts of “picture within a picture” and “play within a play” and provided examples of mise en abyme as a literary technique in his novel The Counterfeiters. Gide's placement of smaller units representing/reflecting the whole in the narrative and his inclusion of the process of writing the novel as a theme in the fiction also influenced the literary views of the New Novelists and postmodernist writers. The works of many researchers such as Claude Magny, Lucien Dällenbach and Marcus Snow have brought about the emergence of different characteristics of mise en abyme and the expansion of its conceptual framework. In this study, the traces of the term mise en abyme in Şehbenderzâde Filibeli Ahmed Hilmi's novel A'mâk-ı Hayâl, are followed. The connection between microstructures and macrostructure in the novel, showing a helispherical organisation in terms of its form and content, has been analyzed. The novel, telling the story of Râci's journey to the truth to get rid of the crisis of faith into which he falls, is analyzed by considering the different features of mise en abyme such as reflection, repetition, resemblance and a part-whole relationship. The structures setting by Ahmed Hilmi in the centre/heart of A'mâk-ı Hayâl are analyzed.