Revisiting Oedipus Rex in The Red-Haired Woman
Title: The Red-Haired Woman (Kırmızı Saçh Kadın)
Author: Orhan Pamuk
Translated from the Turkish by Ekin Oklap
Publisher: Faber & Faber, London
Year published: 2017
253 pages
The Red-Haired Woman is a haunting and layered novel that weaves together memory, myth, politics, and personal guilt to explore the relationship between fathers and sons, as well as the tension between tradition and modernity.
Set against the backdrop of Turkey’s shifting political and cultural landscape from the 1980s to the present, the story follows Cem Çelik, a boy from Istanbul who, after his father abandons the family, takes up a summer job apprenticing with a traditional well-digger in the rural town of Öngören.
As the well-digger, Master Mahmut, becomes a temporary father figure to Cem, their relationship mirrors the intimate yet fraught dynamics of paternal authority.
Cem’s adolescent restlessness and curiosity grow, especially after he catches glimpses of a traveling theater troupe and becomes infatuated with the enigmatic red-haired woman, an older actress who both captivates and mystifies him.
The emotional intensity of that summer is cut short by a sudden and tragic incident at the well, after which Cem abruptly leaves and never returns.
Years later, Cem is a successful engineer and businessman, married and seemingly settled. However, his past continues to weigh on him, especially the unresolved trauma from the well-digging incident and the ambiguous encounter with the red-haired woman.
The novel gradually reveals how deeply his actions—and failures—were shaped by stories he once considered distant: the Western myth of Oedipus, who unknowingly kills his father, and the Eastern legend of Sohrab and Rustum, where the father kills the son without knowing it.
Through this duality, Pamuk questions fate, responsibility, and the enduring power of stories. Cem’s eventual return to Öngören unravels shocking truths that blur the lines between myth and reality, desire and regret.
In the end, The Red-Haired Woman is not just a tale of youthful passion and remorse, but also a meditation on the narratives that shape human identity and the inescapable pull of the past.
NICE
Comments