The Individual-Society Conflict Between Modernism and Postmodernism (A Comparison of Oğuz Atay’s The Disconnected and Aka Morchiladze’s Santa Esperanza)

Abstract

This study aims to examine the impact of modernism and postmodernism on the individual-society relationship and identity themes in Turkish and Georgian literature. Specifically, Oğuz Atay’s The Disconnected (1972) and Aka Morchiladze’s Santa Esperanza (2004) novels explore the individual’s conflict with social structures and their search for identity while employing modernist and postmodernist narrative techniques in different cultural contexts. The Disconnected focuses on the internal conflict of the individual with the external world, particularly highlighting alienation, identity crises, and the struggle to fit into societal norms. On the other hand, Santa Esperanza, adopting the postmodern emphasis on multiple perspectives and ambiguity, presents the individual’s search for identity in a more flexible and layered manner. Employing qualitative content analysis within a comparative literary framework, this study examines how modernist and postmodernist narrative strategies represent individual identity and social conflict in different cultural contexts. As a result, both novels question the individual’s position in society, illustrating that modernist and postmodernist techniques serve different aesthetic and thematic functions, exploring the individual’s quest for identity and the impact of societal structures on the individual from different angles. The role of modernism and postmodernism in this context becomes clearer through a deep analysis of the texts.