Fatih Harbiye

I see the sharp differences between upper and lower class most in Fatih Harbiye. Actually it is a book written by Peyami Safa, now there is a TV series based on this mentioned novel.

Fatih and Harbiye are the two districts in Istanbul. These two districts became symbols of abundance and poverty. As Fatih symbolizes poverty, Harbiye symbolized abundance.

As Güven said: “They think that the story of this particular family, with a dominant father caring too much about traditional family values, and the children in search of life of high standarts, capable of doing anything for it, reflects perfectly the lower-middle class portrait of family in Turkey.” This sentence perfectly matches with the situation of Neriman; her traditional father and Neriman’s expectations from life.

Neriman, Şinasi and Macit are the main characters of Fatih Harbiye. Neriman has a poor family and strong rules in her life because of her father and form of her family. She wants to be more free and doesn’t happy with this life. Şinasi is living in the same quarter with Neriman, they are together since their childhood but Şinasi is narrow-minded like Neriman’s family. And he is in love with Neriman. Macit comes from a strong and rich family, he also in love with Neriman because of Neriman’s trueness. And this book tells us the differences between Neriman, Şinasi and Macit’s family mostly with the money.

As turkish families are facing the same problems which are treated in these series, the series became very popular in Turkey.