The White Castle

Orhan Pamuk, The White Castle

From Nobel Laurite Orhan Pamuk comes a tale about the quest for the meaning of human existence. The White Castle, the first English translation from the Turkish writer, symbolizes the human search to the unattainable truth. The story is about a young Italian scholar, after being captivated by Turkish vessel, becomes a slave to a man who bears a shocking resemblance to himself in appearance. As the years go by, they become more alike, until the line between the two individuals begins to blur. In his working of this short but nonetheless profound, imaginative tale, Pamuk delves into the issue of self-examination and explores the more philosophical question on the formation of identity.

“Why am I the way I am” is central to many philosophical thinking; it is also the utmost question that drives the characters in The White Castle to their self-searching experiences. In the formation of the self and its identity, one inevitably comes across the recognition of the “mirror stage”, from which the basic self-awareness and the prototype of an identity is built on. The novel then features a scene, in which the protagonist and the antagonist both stand in front of the mirror half naked, gazing at the two reflections of the two “I”s. Being essential to the recognition of the self, the scene sets for the two characters a foundation to a shared identity.

Moving on further, Pamuk shows that, besides the indispensible mirror stage, the formation of a self and its identity requires also social experiences, for identity is often socially constructed. What ultimately makes the two characters identical is their acquirement and adaptation of each other’s social experience. As the years go by, each knows better the other’s background; therefore, it is with no difficulty that the two become interchangeable.

The sovereign once asked the protagonist, “must one be a sultan to understand that men, in the four corners and seven climes of the world, all resembled one another?” and “was it not the best proof that men everywhere were identical with one another that they could take each other’s place?”(The White Castle, 136). Identity is fluid, as the novel exemplifies. In order to know oneself, as the protagonist suggests later, one should look “outside” instead of "inside", since mostly the outside determines what we are, and because we are more often what we are as socially recognized. Ultimately, it is what surrounds a person that make up the identity in question, and that we are all build by tiny bits of facts, and likely they are all transient.