Clash of Identities: Men and Women Search for Recognition in Elif Shafak’s Honour

Abstract

Human behaviour is one of the most complicated riddles to solve. The way people handle internal and external confrontations is driven by genetic and environmental factors. Additionally, Social perceptions and affirmations affect the developmental process of individual perceptions. In that light, Elif Shafak’s Honour is a great work of Migrant Literature that discusses the construction of identity in relation to traditions, cultural, and geographical settings. The present research focuses on the different layers of hybridity and their manifestation in migrant lives and relationships. Furthermore, it extracts the components of womanhood and manhood in the Turkish society. The research highlights how treating women as ‘the other’ shapes their identities and by consequence, the identities of their children. Such mentality results in many problematic behaviours and norms that affect the lives of Turkish individuals even when settling away from Türkiye. The results stimulate the role of traditions and upbringing in shaping human behaviour. The research also clarifies how the migrant individual manages these norms in addition to the norms of his new environment.