My Name is Red

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-10

Chapters 11-14

Chapters 15-19

Chapters 20-27

Chapters 28-36

Chapters 37-40

Chapters 41-47

Chapters 48-53

Chapters 54-59

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Early Modern Islamic Debates about Art

One of the most prominent themes of Orhan Pamuk’s novel is the clash between two different painting traditions—one originating in the East and one in the West.

During the medieval and early modern periods, the use of representational images in Muslim manuscripts was allowed, despite the ban on depictions of living creatures based on more traditional understandings of Islam. To get around the issue of using artwork in books, calligraphers and artists viewed images as secondary and supplemental to the text on the page. Images were illustrative, meant to provide readers with greater understanding of textual meaning and were not intended to depict real life; instead, illustrations were supposed to show the world through Allah’s eyes by painting not from life, but from traditional iconography, so that each represented being would be the same in each piece of art.

In contrast, Western art during the Renaissance sought to create images that more fully represented real life, focusing on realistic portraiture and directly representing the observed world. Often called Venetian art within the novel, Western paintings sought to individualize their subjects as well as the artists who created them. Western artists also used perspective to show distance and change the perception of the viewer; they also cultivated individual style to distinguish their works from those of others—unlike Eastern artists, who prized instead the ability to most faithfully reproduce the images of old masters.

Within his novel, Pamuk traces the different positions early modern Ottoman artists took in regard to their work. Extremism from both sides is represented as problematic. Master Osman, for instance, believes strongly in the traditional ideals of art as an attempt to view the world through the eyes of the Divine. To obtain (or be blessed with) the sight of Allah, Master Osman blinds himself. Olive, the murderer, represents the more progressive side. However, his zealotry is as extreme as that of Master Osman. To seek immortality and recognition as an artist, Olive kills two people and then paints himself onto the last page of the book where a portrait of the Sultan was meant to be. Neither destructive action leads to the desired outcome, as Olive is forced to realize that his self-portrait is a failure and that his reach has exceeded his grasp.

Nested Narrative Storytelling in the Islamic World

While initially poetry was the most revered form of writing in the medieval Islamic world, the proliferation of prose stories, often compilations of various tales unified by a frame narrative became popular during the 12th century. One famous example of this type of story is The Thousand and One Nights. An international collection added to by many authors, parts of which were written as early as the ninth century, this work is grounded by the frame story of Scheherazade, a concubine of a tyrant king. This young woman, in order to keep living, tells the king a new story each night. As scholars have noted, the stories she tells often play on each other through echoes, reoccurring themes, and variations. Additionally, many of the tales Scheherazade tells the king generate additional stories within the secondary stories. This form of nested stories became popular in the Islamic world and can be clearly seen in Orhan Pamuk’s novel, My Name is Red.

Pamuk’s novel, while focusing primarily on the events surrounding the murders of Elegant and Enishte and the romance of Black and Shekure, contains a number of nested stories that provide greater depth to the frame narrative. Pamuk uses a wide range of narrators to comment on the overarching themes of his story; often, within these secondary stories, are other tales that provide philosophical and cultural strands of thought. For instance, discrete chapters are told from the perspective of a number of drawings that populate the work, including paintings of a dog, Satan, Death, a tree, and two dervishes.

While these tales might seem unrelated to the central plot, each of them comments on central philosophical ideas posed in the larger text. The chapter narrated by the tree, for instance, offers one perspective on Islamic art and clarifies the conservative Islamic perspective on art’s purpose. The drawing of the tree, separated from the manuscript and story to which it originally belonged, feels unmoored. Its musings posit that the Western style of artwork, which prizes the individuality of both subject and artist, is wrong. Instead, the tree believes that artwork should move beyond representation of the real world and denote the eternal ideals of Allah. Thus, the tree’s story of its misadventures, rather than standing alone, becomes a commentary on the struggle between Eastern and Western art styles that play out in the larger text.

Women's Agency in the Early Modern Ottoman World

Early modern Muslim women, like their European counterparts, had to contend with patriarchal societies that restricted their life choices. For instance, while women in the Ottoman Empire could ask for a divorce in the courts, they needed a male family member to vouch for them. Additionally, women’s status was based on the male members of their families, and they were deemed less intelligent and less morally pure than men. The patriarchal family structure in the Ottoman Empire was also polygamous and the traditional Muslim hierarchy required women’s subordination to the wills of their fathers, brothers, and husbands. Yet, many women did negotiate their marital rights by their involvement in selecting or refusing a husband and some women maintained access to property even after marriage.

Pamuk’s novel explores these dynamics through the stories of several women characters. Shekure works within the societal expectations of women to forge her own path; however, her ability to do so is so hemmed in that she must resort of out-of-character manipulation of others. She is the one who plans her own divorce and marriage to Black after finding her father dead. Aware that her position as a widow without proof of her husband’s death would put her back in the house of Hasan, Shekure promises Black his desires if her will complete the tasks she asks. Although Shekure uses herself as a bargaining chip, her quick thinking allows her to subvert the patriarchal system and actively select her own husband.

In contrast to Shekure stand Esther and Hayriye, who demarcate the spectrum of possibilities available to women at the time. As a Jewish woman not under the strictures of Muslim beliefs, Esther has markedly more freedom than Shekure. She works as an intermediary and a reseller of goods, which makes her less reliant on men; likewise, her experiences with many different kinds of people make Esther a source of wisdom and advice for Shekure, who has no other maternal figures in her life. Esther inserts herself into Shekure’s decision-making, guiding—sometimes more and sometimes less helpfully—the younger woman into choosing between Hasan and Black, neither an ideal option. Meanwhile, Hayriye exemplifies what a life of almost no agency looks like. As an enslaved woman working at Enishte’s house, Hayriye has no say over her sexual experiences—as Shekure learns, Enishte has sex with Hayriye, a relationship of highly dubious consent. Hayriye’s life is one of fear; her one moment of agency is knowing that Shekure was absent from the house during Enishte’s murder—but even this tiny bit of power can do nothing about her enslavement.