The Portrayal of Female Characters in Two Fictional Texts Written in Greek and Published in Istanbul in the 19th Century

The reflections of the sexist discourse that arose in Europe throughout the 19th century are also observed in works published in Greek in the same period. The core of this discourse is the view that women are weak by nature and that men are strong as long as they are financially sound. In this sense, the demonic woman is positioned directly opposite the angelic woman. This woman is tasked with highlighting the components of identity of the ideal woman that are considered to be good by the dominant ideology and to make them look more polished. This study investigates the portrayal of female characters in two examples of prose that were both published in Istanbul and aims to determine the extent to which the male -dominated discourse and feminist critiques of the period are reflected in the two texts published a year apart by two Greek authors living in Istanbul, one a woman and the other a man. In the stories by the female author examined in the study, one frequently encounters inessential women created by the dominant discourse. On the other hand, the text also includes traces of the cultural feminist tradition of the period. Meanwhile, the novel by the male author examined in this study deviates from other literary texts of the period in that a woman who is endowed with positive traits is selected as the lead character, reversing the image of the weak woman.