Fıctıon or preconceptıon: the ‘ape’ allegory ın rose macaulay’s the towers of trebızond

Abstract

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