Making Hell Through Policy: Exploring Happiness in the Hell in Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Abstract

Snow is a political and philosophical exploration to reveal the hellish atmosphere that is made by secular state forces and political Islamists, a hell made by severe “clashes” between opposite forces and ideas. After twelve years of exile from the fatherland, as a poet, Ka travels to Kars from Germany to obtain happiness. The purpose of this study, however, is to examine the role of happiness in Pamuk's Snow, but also to show how the kinds of hell are made by secular and Islamic politicians. Is it possible to find happiness in the hell? How does it happen? Searching for happiness in hell is another purpose of this article. What shape should hell take between the clashes of political Islamists and secularists? Another aim of this study is to increase imperative critique of Islamic and secular terrorism discourse. In Snow, Pamuk criticizes the policy of the republic seriously. This article attempts to reveal the factors behind the severe anti-secularism beliefs in fundamental Islamism through comparison its political point of view to the secular totalitarian policy. To illuminate the social and political conflicts and clashes in Snow, this article reads the novel from different sociopolitical theoretical conceptual sources.