Atkinson’ın Suç Romanlarında Jane Eyre’in Feminen Özne Arayışının Tekkerürü

Kate Atkinson ilk ve dördüncü suç romanı Case Histories (Suç Dosyaları) ve Started Early, Took My Dog’da (Köpeğimi Alıp Erkenden), feminizmin başarısızlığını gözden geçirmek için Charlotte Brontë’nin Jane Eyre’ini ve başka Kadın Gotik anlatılarını yeniden yazar. İkinci dalga feminizm, kadınlardan yarı yok edilmiş feminen özneyi bulmalarını ve kalıntılarından kendileri için özgür bir kimlik inşa etmelerini ister. Atkinson’ın ilk suç romanında amatör dedektif ve oyuncu Julia Land kaybolan kız kardeşini, dördüncü romanında da televizyon ekranında büründüğü adli tıp doktoru rolünde, bedenine eziyet edilerek öldürülmüş bir seks işçisinin kimliğini bulmak zorundadır. Ancak Julia, Jane Eyre gibi hem kaybolan bir kadını arar hem de kadının varlığını görünmez kılmaya çalışan ataerkiyle suç ortaklığı yapar. Bu makalede, Atkinson’ın çağdaş suç romanında kadın dedektifinin ve günümüz kadınlarının ‘gotik kadın kahramanın’ açmazını tekrar yaşadıklarına işaret ettiği savunulacaktır: Kendilerini romantik aşk mitine kaptırarak feminist misyonlarını unutup ataerkinin feminen özneyi yok etme suçuna ortak olurlar.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Kate Atkinson, Case Histories, Started Early, Took My Dog, Jane Eyre, Feminen Özne

Reiteration of Jane Eyre's Search for the Feminine Subject in Atkinson's Crime Novels

Kate Atkinson in her first and fourth crime novel, Case Histories and Started Early, Took My Dog, rewrites Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and other Female Gothic narratives to ponder feminism’s failure to ‘arrive.’ Second-wave feminism asks women to retrieve the half-obliterated feminine subject and construct from the fragments an emancipated identity for themselves. In Atkinson’s first crime novel, the amateur detective and actress Julia Land must retrieve a vanished sister and, in the fourth, in her onscreen role as a forensic pathologist the identity of a mutilated sex worker. Yet Julia repeats Jane Eyre’s simultaneous search for a lost woman and complicity with patriarchy’s occlusion of her. Atkinson, it will be argued, signals that the contemporary literary female investigator and ultimately today’s women relive the gothic heroine’s dilemma: Susceptible to the myth of romantic love, they abort their feminist mission and collude with patriarchy’s obliteration of the feminine subject.

Keywords:

Kate Atkinson, Case Histories, Started Early, Took My DOg, Jane Eyre,

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