Yeni Türk Edebiyatı Araştırmaları

Öz

There is no doubt that human's search for adding value to his own being is the most important among the main reasons for the existence of literature as an art. Literature, as well as all fine arts, has made a great contribution to human's efforts to find out and make sense of his own or the life he lives, and to the determination of the values that exist in life from morality to aesthetics or directing them. Western-based modern literature has been basically built on the greatness of human value. However, on the contrary, the tendencies that emerged after World War I and became stronger with World War II are filled with doubts about the greatness of human value. It is possible to see the questionings on this value more closely in the novel type with significant opportunities in terms of representing the individual within the life he/she actually lives. In this article, the first volume of The Man Without Qualities (Niteliksiz Adam), which was published by the Austrian author Robert Musil (1880-1942) in 1930 and was translated into Turkish in 1999, The Idle Man (Lüzumsuz Adam) written by Sait Faik in 1947, and The Useless Man (Aylak Adam) published by Yusuf Atılgan in 1959, that emphasize the questionings on the value of human by their names, will be discussed in terms of central people with a flaneur characteristic as a critique of the modern human's value perception.