AT THE BOUNDARIES OF MACHINE AND HUMANITY: A COMPARATIVE POSTHUMANIST ANALYSIS OF E. GASKELL’S NORTH AND SOUTH AND O. KEMAL’S ON FERTILE LANDS

This study offers a comparative posthumanist analysis of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and Orhan Kemal’s On Fertile Lands, exploring the dissolution of anthropocentric subjectivity and the evolution of humans within industrial and urban settings. By placing these novels within their specific socio-historical contexts—Victorian England during the Industrial Revolution and Turkey’s rural-urban migration post-1950s—the paper explores how literature mirrors the dissolution of traditional human autonomy in favour of interconnected and distributed identities. Utilising posthumanist theories, it contends that both novels illustrate humans as interconnected with technological and socio-economic frameworks and that identities are reshaped through interaction with machines, factories, and urban environments. Through its portrayal of the alienation experienced by rural migrants and their assimilation into capitalist frameworks, On Fertile Lands highlights a transition from anthropocentric values to posthumanist interpretations. Migrants are portrayed as social subjects and as posthumanist entities, with their identities redefined through their interactions with industrial machinery, factories, and urban systems. In a comparable manner, North and South indicates the transformative impact of industrial capitalism on the relationship between humans and machines, particularly displayed through Margaret Hale's developing awareness in Milton. Labourers in the novel function as extensions of the machines they operate, presenting a complex dynamic of human and non-human interactions. Considering this, the study enhances the understanding of posthuman subjectivity in literature through the juxtaposition of these novels, providing a cross-cultural perspective on the relationship between humans and machines.