The Discourse Created by the Animal in Gölgesizler and İnce Memed

As one of the aspects of ecocriticism, zoopoetics focuses on the existence of non-human animals in literary works. The term expresses how animals or rather non-human animals are able to create their own poetry through systematic vocalization, therefore creating their own art. It is a term Jacques Derrida coined in his essay ‘‘The Animal Therefore I Am”. Although Derrida focuses on poetry as a genre, the term will be applied to two Turkish novels: İnce Memed by Yaşar Kemal and Gölgesizler by Hasan Ali Toptaş. As the human characters in literary works have their own personality and are therefore able to create discourse with their monologues or dialogues, non-human animals also create their own discourse. In İnce Memed, as the English translation [Memed, My Hawk] suggests, the hawk is the central animal and therefore displays a certain discourse of power. The non-human animals in Gölgesizler bear, horse, and dove are also notorious for their power but are able to create a discourse of cruelty as well, among many different aspects. Consequently, non-human animals also are the focus of attention of literature from the view of zoopoetics. The main aim of this study is to state that animals are not only meant to be interpreted as symbols of concepts; on the contrary, they present their own autonomy.