A Comparative Review of the Novels Titled Gün Görmeyen Sokak (The Street That Never Sees Daylight) and Havada Bulut Yok (No Clouds in the Sky)

Abstract

Based on Şahap Sıtkı’s novels Gün Görmeyen Sokak and Cevdet Kudret’s Havada
Bulut Yok, this article aims to examine the authors’ attitudes towards reality and their
views on social reality comparatively. In these novels, both of which were published in
1958, in accordance with the understanding of art and literature of the period, the village,
the peasant and the civil servant are looked at through the eyes of two ‘teachers’ named
Nurseren and Süleyman respectively. The prevailing mentality in both of the novels is the
importance of education and development, and the fact that the situation of middle and
lower strata people is quite difficult and painful. However, although Şahap Sıtkı sees social
reality with artistic sensitivity, he does not deal with the fictional world of the work or
the people of this world on a social and economic basis; it does not offer a ‘solution’ or a
‘prescription’ to the social problems it touches on in his work. On the other hand, Cevdet
Kudret adopts an interventionist attitude although it ends in failure in the face of social
realism; The novel person struggles with the reality he finds wrong through Süleyman.
In this context, it can be said that Gün Görmeyen Sokak is a realist novel while Havada
Bulut Yok is a social realist one.