Özet:
In The Towers of Trebizond, in Chapter 22, Rose Macaulay begins to train an ape named
Suliman which she bought before leaving Turkey. Though she criticizes the mission activities carried
out by the Church, she intends to implement mission on this ape. With the supposition that it originally
belonged to mountains and has not climbed up the path of civilization, she organizes a ‘civilization’
course for it, aiming to ultimately have an Anglican, emancipated and civilized ‘human being’. In this
respect, it could be said that Macaulay’s perspective of Turks and their need to get civilized are
represented with the allegorical ape. When the writer’s overall attitude towards the people living in
Turkey is taken into account, it could be suggested that she intentionally created such a fictitious ape
character to denote an uncivilized Turkish person. It is known that Rose Macaulay actually visited
Turkey and Cyprus in 1950s, and shared her impressions in her letters to her sister. In these letters, she
regards the Turks as ‘the most inferior’ people of the world in terms of intellectual capacity, which in
part explicates why she chose an ape to train both spiritually and culturally. Therefore, in this study,
whether the ape character in this novel is a product of fiction or preconception will be examined, mainly
referring to Macaulay’s own writings.
Key Words: Rose Macaulay, Ape Allegory, The Towers of Trebizond, Prejudice
Açıklama:
İnönü Üniversitesi Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi Cilt 4, Sayı 2, 2015, s. 45-51.