Postmodernist Elements in Elif Shafak's Novel "The Forty Rules of Love" (Intertextuality, Double Coding, Plagiary and Speaking Names)

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Elene Gogiashvili

Abstract

Attitude of the human of postmodernist epoch to the world is epistemological. He/she attempts to clarify, how to “deal~ with this world, what kind of attitude to it should be developed/ Postmodernist literature describes very closely the spiritual crisis of the individuals of postmodernist epoch. And this spiritual crisis is so intense that he/she seeks the “way of salvation” in the best experiences of the past days, past views and beliefs and philosophy. And the most prominent example of our words is the art of the contemporary woman author, Elif Shafak. Elif Shafak appeared in the world of literature in 1980. With respect of the themes and creative-expressive techniques, her art is a very interesting subject of research. The writer’s novels comprise some kind of history, created through unifying of the real and unreal worlds. The issues of the past, modernization, estrangement, identity, philosophy are of great significance in the writer’s art. Elif Shafak’s biography is as interesting, as her art. Analysis with regard of postmodernist trends. In this respect, this novel provides very vast
material for analysis. On the basis of such analysis it was found that the postmodernist trends are mostly provided through dual coding, intertextuality
and parody techniques. Let us focus on the characters of the novel. In our opinion, the dual coding technique is applied in relation to them. In addition, as
the novel is of apparently Sufi nature. In our analysis we rely on Sufi these of human perfection, spiritual training and supremacy of love. With respect of its
structure, the novel fully corresponds to the style of postmodern novel. There are several main characters there, time is anachronistic and there can be clearly seen such postmodern trends, as:


Intertextuality
Dual coding
Plagiary
Speaking names


Medieval characters are determined in the images of the characters of 21st century, the time boundaries between them are effaced, they communicate with
one another at the conscience level. Cleary Sufi nature of the novel makes it much more monolithic. And this monolith nature can be seen in uninterrupted fable. One story is logical continuation of the other, though these two stories intermingle.

Published: Sep 29, 2021

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Language and Literature