Through the Looking-Glass, and What the Venetian Found There

In our class discussion today, we focused much upon the idea of the “mirror-image,” and to what extent we are meant to infer similarities or differences (even opposites) based upon the use of that concept. I believe our difficulty solving this, as evidenced by a plethora of opinions in class today, is a deliberate aspect of Pamuk’s novel. I believe that Pamuk’s use of the doppelganger motif and the (almost inevitable, given the trope’s history) switching of the “doppelgangers” is a deliberate device Pamuk uses to establish a sense of ambiguity about identity and, ultimately, moral disorientation.

Ambiguity about identity confuses the reader. Perhaps, beginning The White Castle, we are inclined to side with the Venetian because he is introduced before the Hoja is. At first, we are likely to say that the Venetian is the “good guy” and the Hoja is the “bad guy,” but ultimately, it is not so clear. The Venetian and the Hoja, throughout the novel, remain locked into what is essentially a staring contest, attempting to glean from the other information about themselves, to the extent that, no matter how antagonistic the relationship may initially appear (the Hoja, for example, physically abusing the Venetian after telling him to write down a list of sins he has committed), the relationship has clear ups-and-downs, these violent episodes are punctuated by what is, at times, almost a real friendship. It is as though the lines between the two characters are blurred. They are, to some extent, the same character, if we are to take a literal interpretation of the “mirror-image” concept.

Simultaneously, we must remain aware that both the Venetian and the Hoja have distinct personalities and, perhaps more prominently, distinct cultural identities.  No matter how blurred the lines between them are, they differ in many regards, such as their dissimilar reactions to the plague. Perhaps this ties into the idea of two contradictory ideas being held by a single person (it isn’t hard to synthesize the idea of fascination and revulsion existing concurrently), but that Pamuk chooses to write such differences at all into the Venetian and the Hoja means that, to some extent, these characters are deliberate opposites of one another—literally “reflections” in that they are superficially identical, but opposite in all other regards.

I believe that this, in combination with Pamuk’s use of frame narrative (as I discussed in my previous blog entry) combine to purposely confuse the reader. Whereas in Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, the reader could walk away with a distinct impression of what Ali was trying to accomplish (“The Christian oppression of Muslim Spain is an example of an Orientalist divide leading to grim conflict”), it is very difficult to walk away from The White Castle with any clear sense of what Pamuk is trying to say in regard to the Orientalist divide. Certainly, he is trying to show us that it is far more complicated than a simple dichotomy between the East and the West, but beyond that, it is hard to say. By confusing identity, and by alienating the reader from the narrative through the use of the frame narrative, Pamuk makes us think twice about siding with either the Venetian or the Hoja; we think critically about the positions of both “sides” (if such sides actually exist) and yet cannot come up with a definitive answer.