The Domestic Chronotope in Melisa Kesmez’s “Nohut Oda” Stories: Memory, Belonging, and Daily Life

The present study analyzes Melisa Kesmez’s short story collection Nohut Oda in accordance with the notion of chronotope proposed by Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. This study aims at demonstrating how time and space interrelationship in the work connects with the character’s memories, sense of belonging, loneliness, separation, and everyday life experience. Developed on the basis of qualitative research design, the study includes text analysis based on document review. Descriptions of the house, room, objects, door, garden, abandoned spaces, and details of the characters’ daily routine in Nohut Oda have been analyzed from the point of view of chronotope. According to the results of the analysis, the time-space relationship in Nohut Oda is characterized by the following four basic structures: the chronotope of the house and room, the chronotope of memory and objects, the chronotope of thresholds and separation, and the chronotope of daily life. It was found out that space in the work is not just a physical environment, where the actions take place, but also a meaning-creating structure, which helps to uncover the connections between the characters and the past, their desire to belong, and their loneliness. To sum up, Nohut Oda can be considered one of the strong examples of contemporary Turkish short stories, where the domestic spaces are filled with meaning due to the influence of time, memory, and emotions, and the details of daily routine become chronotopic indicators of the characters’ inner worlds.