BETWEEN TRADITION AND SELF: EXISTENTIAL QUESTS IN ELIF SHAFAK'S 'HONOUR'

Abstract

Honour is a novel by Elif Shafak, that is a fascinating journey into the meeting points of culture, family, and the weight of hereditary traditions. It does not directly talk about existential philosophy in its strictest philosophical sense but it dwells on some ideas whose existence correspond with those in existential thought like the search for individual identity, opposition to predestined roles and quest for significance in an unfriendly reality. The characters are struggling mightily within "Honour" to carve out identities for themselves beyond those imposed upon them by their families and cultural backgrounds. In life they take divergent directions as each of them respond to their cultural confines and personal desires. At heart, this quest is existential because it emphasizes the conflict between defined roles and individual freedom. The experiences of these characters growing up Kurdish villagers from Jordan who migrated to London give us an opportunity to consider alienation which is one of key concepts within existentialism. This uprooting raises questions such as what does it mean to belong or how can human exist in an indifferent or even hostile environment? These are people who have had a difficult time navigating through different stages of life while still finding space to maintain their own culture. The novel also includes the absurd, another existential concept with which it deals—the relationship between humans’ urge for inherent value and meaning in life, and universe’s silence to them. The existential struggle of this family regarding honour, a highly complex and devastatingly influential factor in their lives, mirrors this.