Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi

Öz

Metropolitan concept started to
take part in literature quickly after the industrial revolution in 19. century
in Europe. Metropolitan concept appears in people in two different ways. One of
them is that, the big city is dirty, burdensome, fast, transformative and the
other is that in a metropolitan city there are cinema, theater, shopping,
social relationships and lots of other various opportunities. Metropolitan
concept is proccessed majorly in 20. century novel and poetry. In German literature
, “Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929)” of Alferd Döblin is shown as the most famous
metropolitan novel. The conspicuous point here is that most of the literary
works written about metropolitan after the First World War and before Second
World War talk over Berlin as a metropolitan city. One of them is Eric
Kastner’s works which have been the subject of this study. “Fabian”, the most
famous work of Kastner, also takes place in Berlin. Among his other works, the
novel “Emil” and the poem “Besuch vom Lande” also take place in Berlin, too.
20th century literature takes its topic from metropolitan cities most of the
time, because metropolitans leave profound impression on the person. The
startup of migration from the village to the city with the industrial revolution
and as a result of this, the increase of squatter settlement in the cities
cause to the ghettoization. The struggle between social classes leads to the
anxiety of getting to work on time and working harder. Besides, the longness of
working hours, becoming distanced with the family members, the pursuit of
happiness apart from family lead to alienation. All of these unfavorableness
becomes a springe which the metropolitan cities prepare for  the people who migrate from village to city.