Ömer Seyfettin continued his literary work during a period when the Ottoman Empire was entering a period of disintegration and wars were intense. His military identity and constant presence in the atmosphere of war led to a negative tendency in the author’s psychological makeup. This situation occasionally led to a distinct pessimism and, consequently, a sense of hopelessness in the narrator and protagonist of his stories. Hopelessness is a state of life in which ontological tensions within a person’s inner world reach their peak and psychological conflicts intensify. Ömer Seyfettin often portrayed his characters in a state of tension, beset by internal and external conflicts, resulting in unhappy endings. His stories often exhibit individual and societal despair caused by wars, social upheavals, and occupations. Themes such as childhood experiences, old age, economic hardship, women and marriage issues, feminism, generation gap / Westernization, and war are among the prominent causes of this feeling of hopelessness.
Ömer Seyfettin, despair, childhood experiences, old age.