Abstract:

Utopias are known as fictional, imaginary, and ideal society representations. The desire of almost every human community to live in a country where justice prevails, in peace, without deprivation and evil, has led to the emergence of these representations. Of course, in the universe where good and evil are in constant conflict, it has been inevitable for these imaginary representations to take their share. In addition to the utopias in which the ideal social order is envisaged, the existence of dystopias, which are their antitheses, should not be denied. While utopias focus on the social designs that are desired; in dystopias, on the contrary, the criticism of imperfect societies predominates. This situation reminds us of the fact that every utopia work also contains its dystopia. Similar examples of this genre can be found in Turkish literature, one of them is Yusuf Cifci's Erdemsizler Ülkesi. The novel is a utopian work that also contains dystopic elements between the lines. In this novel the answer to the question “What virtue is?” is tried to be revealed through the Alphabet society, whose individuals are composed of letters. In other words, the author tries to catch the attention of the reader to the question of how an ideal society should be, by mentioning what should not be. Based on this thought, this article aims to analyze "virtue" in Çifci's work called " Erdemsizler Ülkesi."