AHMET MİTHAT EFENDİ’NİN “KARNAVAL”, “HENÜZ 17 YAŞINDA” ve “VAH” ROMANLARINDA BATI MEDENİYETİ ELEŞTİRİSİ / AHMET MITHAT EFENDI'S CRITICISM TO THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION IN HIS NOVELS

The Tanzimat Reform Era has an important place with its main lines in the life of the Turkish nation with the changes and developments it caused in the fields of politics, community and literature. Ottoman community underwent series changes in accordance with the state's efforts of westernization. The new life style emerged as a result of westernization started to affect the existing Ottoman society structure in a negative way. Besides, the malfunctions in the society's own structure have caused damage to the social structure. Ahmet Mithat Efendi often compared the Ottoman social life and the European one, and criticised it. This approach may be defined as the trial to let the reader appraise the right and the wrong simultaneously. Though they are fiction, Ahmet Mithat Efendi's novels are of great importance as they show the reflections of conceptions belonging to the Western civilization on Ottoman society and how the values of the Turkish society changed with the perception of the Western civilization. In this respect, particularly novels “Karnaval, Vah” and “Henüz 17 Yaşında” (Carnival, Vah and At the Age of Seventeen), where Ahmet Mithat Efendi discussed this issue were analysed in terms of the criticisms towards the Western civilization. Thereby, Ahmet Mithat Efendi's way of perception of the Western civilization and his criticisms were tried to be detected via his chosen works.