A Look at The Theme of Power Change in The Novels The Leopard", and "Memed, "My Hawk"

The novels, "The Leopard" by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and "Memed, My Hawk" by Yashar Kemal, both involve back stories of power changes, that is changes to the class systems. Yet each novel is told from a different point of view - The Leopard from that of the displaced upper-class aristocracy in southern Italy between 1860 and 1880, and Memed, My Hawk from the view point of the Turkish peasant/serf fighting for his rights. The central romantic love relationships of the two novels powerfully reflect this. Di Lampedusa's novel contains a practical relationship, that between Angelica and Tancredi which will bring status to her and money to him. By contrast Kemal's novel features true love between two devoted partners where relationship is in total opposition to all such practical considerations.

In the central scene of romance in "The Leopard", di Lampedusa writes "Tancredi did not realize, or he realized perfectly well, that he was drawing the girl into the hidden centre of the sensual cyclone" (The Leopard, p. 107), and this is nearly all that holds the couple together. We learn later that Prince Fabrizio, Tancredi's uncle and surrogate father had always known that Tancredi "would go hunting for a rich marriage ... as a predatory adventure" (The Leopard, p. 169) as a bankrupted aristocrat he had to induce this beautiful rich girl as to assure his own status. Angelica, for her part, is after Tancredi's title and the social doors it can open. The exact opposite situation occurs with Memed and Hatché, Kemal makes it plain that they have been destined for each other since childhood for their fates are intertwined. Yet both of their lives are controlled by their feudal landlord, Abdi Agha who wants Hatché as a bride for his callow nephew Veli. When Memed finally elopes with Hatché, taking her into a completely isolated part of the forest, in effect they are escaping from the real world, and Abdi Agha's grasp. The love scene in "The Leopard" to which I have already referred, involves the lovers' exploring the abandoned wings of the Salina family palace at Donnafugata. Accordingly, its eroticism is shot through with forebodings of decay such as "the scuffle of rats in the ceilings above, or the rustle of some centuries-old forgotten letter" (The Leopard, p. 108). It also creates a scene of frightfulness and horror, giving the lovers excuses to physically comfort each other. In "Memed, My Hawk" the night that Memed and Hatché are in the forest, they are, by contrast, forced to take their clothes off and dry them on the fire in order not to freeze to death. Here the erotic imagery is wholly free of anything unchaste. Instead Kemal suggests "uncontrollable desire ... [as] her (Hatché's) breasts swelled out between her fingers [and] tiny locks of hair curled behind her ears" (Memed, My Hawk, p. 79). Memed's passions for Hatché become excruciating, there is a perfectly shaped woman next to him naked, who has run away with him. They both desire each other, but Memed acting as the strong male of folk epic tradition seizes "her wrist so tight that it hurt ... and began to kiss her. Suddenly she no longer resisted" (Memed, My Hawk, p. 80).In contrast to Angelica and Tancredi, they are overmastered by passion and they actually do have sexual intercourse. Once Memed and Hatché begin embracing each other, we hear no more about the rain and the cold. It is important that Memed and Hatché's desire is consummated and that this happens out of doors amidst the wild elements by a raging fire. Angelica and Tancredi's flirtation occurs indoors amidst the dust and rot of the past ages, for example "they noticed a door hidden by a wardrobe; the centuries-old lock soon gave way to the fingers pleasantly entwined in forcing it" (The Leopard, p. 109). What di Lampedusa implies is that Tancredi is introducing Angelica to the decadence of the world he comes from and getting her in his hands as she is his key to a superior life in his future. The love between the two couples is completely different - the love between Memed and Hatché is true love to which consummation in the face of all social barriers is inevitable. Then there is the relationship between Tancredi and Angelica which is at once practical and lewd.

The love between Memed and Hatché also portrays complete devotion against all odds. Memed becomes an outlaw because he kills the man Abdi Agha intends for Hatché. They kept pursuing to see each other. During his brigandry Memed persists in visiting Hatché in prison, assured that "if [he] gets caught, it's [his] fate;" (Memed, My Hawk, p. 290) he risks his life if only to see her. Hatché, in return, yearns for him as well. When she hears news about Memed "prison was no longer a prison; it had turned into a paradise" (Memed, My Hawk, page 291). When visiting each other they are speechless from an overwhelming emotion, "as soon as Hatché saw Memed she stopped dead. Not a sound came from her mouth" (Memed, My Hawk, p. 293). On the other hand, in The Leopard, both Angelica and Tancredi, so di Lampedusa lets us know in the final chapter of his novel set half a century later cheated on each other; and that their "marriage which, even erotically, was no success; a preparation, however, in a way sufficient to itself, exquisite and brief" (The Leopard, p. 112), explains how their marriage was merely an overture; there was no beauty in it.

Angelica and Tancredi lead separate lives together for decades, while Memed and Hatché the opposite tragedy, and what is pitiful is not that they are together, but that they are torn apart. The death of Hatché in the final fire-fight with the police is a powerful symbol of their eternal love for each other. Nothing is exaggerated; Kemal uses a devastating understatement, "Memed remained motionless as a stone, his face tense and terrible to look at, his eyes fixed on the dead body" (Memed, My Hawk, p. 346). Throughout Memed's life Hatché has been the main person on his mind, his great motivation accompanying him on his journey while not with him.

As I have already suggested, the two matches are contradictory in terms of class relationships and their relation to authority. Angelica comes from a nouveau-riche middle-class family and Tancredi from a bankrupted upper class family. They each have something big to gain and their families approve of that. Hatché on the other hand, though a peasant/serf like Memed, has the option of entering upper class society, by marrying Abdi Agha's nephew Veli. However, she chooses Memed and poverty and so Abdi Agha is humiliated that his "daughter in law [ran] away with a laborer" (Memed, My Hawk, p. 82) and he becomes determined to see the poor lovers destroyed. What a difference from Tancredi and Angelica's relationship, which is mainly for this very purpose, to gain money and/or status. In the real world Memed and Hatché have absolutely no chance to be together, and their marriage depends wholly on their resistance to the realities of the world. Angelica and Tancredi have no love bond between them resulting in an unsuccessful, pragmatic marriage, the former relationship is supremely tragic because Hatché dies and she and Memed cannot be together. The latter relationship is tragic for exactly the opposite reason, precisely because Angelica and Tancredi will spend their lives together.