| Summary: | The traces of the European influences seen in the mentality world and the way of living
of the Ottoman Empire rulers, intellectuals and people, who frequently confronted the Western
states in the political, economic and military fields and entered into a decline from the 17th
century onwards, will become increasingly clear over time. One of the areas in which these
traces are depicted is literature. Since the Tanzimat period, our writers have produced works in
which they reflect their stance and views related to modern lifestyle and values. This tendency is
also seen in the Republican Period. One of them is Reşat Nuri, the author of the novel “Yaprak
Dökümü”. In Leaf Dump, Reşat Nuri Güntekin has dealt with the theme of false Westernization
which is often used by our novelists since the Tanzimat period. In this novel, the author tried to
show the phenomenon of the misperception and experience of Westernization in the Ali Rıza
Bey family and the social environment of his family. This effort provided the author with a
social content novel called Yaprak Dökümü. In this novel with the Ali Rıza Bey family at its
center, the author focuses on the adoption of a new lifestyle and moral understanding based on a
materialist-money-based worldview by abandoning traditional values in an environment of social and economic chaos in the early years of the Republican era. At the end of the plot, the
tragic hero of the novel, Ali Rıza Bey, surrenders to the “new order. In the novel, the experience
of Ali Rıza Bey and the family around him represents the clash of traditional and modern
lifestyles faced by middle-class families during the Republican era, and often represents the
victorious arrival of the “new”.
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