The Transformation of Labor, Gender Relations, and Provincial Ethics in Kemal Tahir’s Short Story “Arabacı”

Abstract

This study examines “Arabacı”, a short story by Kemal Tahir and a major figure in Turkish literature, through the lenses of the transformation of labor, gender roles, and provincial ethics. Structurally, “Arabacı” is one of Kemal Tahir’s works closest to the boundaries of the short story genre and reflects the social ruptures of Anatolia in the 1940s at a micro level. The study treats the story’s protagonist, the cart driver (arabacı), as a representative of traditional, precapitalist modes of production and examines the transformative and alienating effects of industrialization and modernization on manual labor through the image of the train. In addition, the study discusses the symbolism of the “erkeksiz ev” [house with no men] in relation to women’s secondary position within the patriarchal structure and the process of how they are reduced to an object of economic exchange. The study analyzes the character’s moral self-confrontation within the framework of provincial ethics, one of the study’s main focal points. The article presents the sense of shame and embarrassment, which the cart driver who initially acts out of pragmatic and sexual desires experiences when confronted with the poverty and desperation of the household he visits, as an indication of the dominant influence of provincial morality on the individual. Ultimately, the article demonstrates “Arabacı” to be not merely a document of a transitional period but also a characteristic example of Kemal Tahir’s distinctive realism, which comprehends humans within their social conditions.