Abstract:

My thesis is examining the significance of father figures and the father-son relationship represented in literature. I have juxtaposed Richard Wright's and Sherman Alexie's texts and illuminated how the universal father complex has specificity in a given historical situation. The father-son relationship, which has been characterized by the Oedipus complex, is better understandable in the context of ambivalent emotions between them. Throughout the main chapters, I have speculated the absence of the father represented in each text and an artistic attempt of the son to remember his lost father. Since the dead father requires a mourning ritual, both writers in their texts explore the capacity of art as a medium to grant meaning to father's life and maturity to their adolescent protagonists.