Introduction of The Gaze By Elif Shafak

‍‍‍The Gaze is a novel which is written by Turkish writer Elif Shafak and its publication occurred in Turkey in 1999 with Turkish title “Mahrem” and was translated into English in 2006 and won the prize of the best novel by Turkish Writers Association.

‍‍‍While going through the pages of The Gaze by Elif Shafak, the generality of thoughts and perceptions paved it’s root to my mind, these perceptions were about, self-hood, love of a different kind, of hankering to be accepted and believed, and at the same space of time wanting for the world to leave you alone with your beloved one.

The Gaze is the book that’ll make you believe in the philosophy of seeing and being seen.

The general idea of The Gaze by Elif Shafak

‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍The Gaze by Elif Shafak, consists of four separated, but orderly and interrelated stories confined into one. One about a couple – an obese woman and her lover B-C a dwarf who are fade up of people’s gazes and want to alter things for themselves. B-C (dwarf) the lover of the narrator and they are frequently gazed by the surrounding because of their reversed physical appearance. B-C is addicted to writing the Dictionary of Gazes. They are pissed off by the strange stares of people but after huffing and puffing of things they come to know that those who don’t like us might they had an issue with their eyes.

They both believe in the concept that:

This is a world of spectacles About seeing and being seen

‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍In the characters of‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ The Gaze B-C is my favourite character, his Conceptions about things, strangeness in his eyes, the way he looks at the things and observes deeply is absolutely startled. Oftenly B-C is in the search of Kesif (discovery). He is curious to gaze at everything in order to reveal the enigmatic and strange stories throughout people and then he jotted down that stories in the dictionary of Gazes.

B-C believes that all of our woes, worries, our felicity and our deepest moments of memories, our very existence in this ephemeral world and also our love has to do with seeing and being seen. In the dictionary of Gazes, this concept is magnificent to memorize Yasm (Life). The secrecy and the sublime passages of life can be seen in solitude.