Projections of the Desire to Return to the Mother and the Womb in Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s Poetry

Abstract

The figure of the mother occupies a decisive position in the formation of an individual’s character and the construction of the self. While psychoanalysts such as Jung, Adler, Ferenczi, and Otto Rank, who were among Freud’s successors, were influenced by his theories, they also posited that the human unconscious is structured prior to birth, while still in the mother’s womb. Starting with the separation from the mother at the moment of birth, this primordial phase imprints certain lasting effects onto the infant’s mind from the very first moment. The mother and the maternal womb manifest in individual behaviors through various emotions, movements, and symbols. An individual develops a subconscious desire to return to the womb, a sheltered environment isolated from external dangers, as a consequence of deep-seated behaviors and emotions such as unrest, fear, alienation, and an inability to identify with the world and society.

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, a prominent figure in modern Turkish poetry, utilized symbols and imagery that reflect the desire to return to the mother and the womb in his works, largely influenced by certain childhood experiences and the temperament shaped by them. These motifs manifest in his verses through elements of darkness, water, and specific animals, accompanied by feelings of fear and anxiety. Certain biographical events in his life serve as the root causes of this psychological state. The loss of his mother to an epidemic on a migration route during his childhood, combined with Tanpınar himself contracting the illness during the same journey—which led him to live a life filled with hypochondriacal apprehensions—fostered a profound longing to return to the womb as a sanctuary protected from external threats and dangers. Tanpınar perceived returning to the mother and achieving oneness with her both as a remedy for his existential unrest and, in a sense, as a mode of rebirth. In this study, Tanpınar’s relevant poems will be analyzed in light of the theoretical frameworks established by psychoanalysts conducting research on this subject.

Citation: Hisarcıklılar, Emel(2026). “Projections of the Desire to Return to the Mother and the Womb in Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s Poetry”, Erdem, June, Issue:90, pp. 99-126.