The White Castle is arguably one of the most influential literary works where the dichotomy of west versus east is concerned. The narrative is told through the eyes of the narrator, a Venetian intellectual who was captured by Turkish sailors at the beginning of the story. The unnamed narrator survives captivity and eventually meets Hoja, a man who bears uncanny resemblance to the narrator, not only in outward appearance, but also in their mannerisms and intellect. Throughout the novel, there are numerous instances when we see how the narrator embodies the Turks’ attitude towards progress, and how Hoja embodies the European’s attitude towards progress. The overarching progression of the narrator starts with him being portrayed as an intellectual, who uses his knowledge to serve others, and eventually embraces the idea of being content in the present moment rather than using his knowledge to further his own ambitions. Hoja’s overarching story, however, does not strictly behave as a contrast of the narrator’s. Hoja is a man who serves no master but himself, gaining knowledge to further his own ambitions through manipulation and deceit.
There is a stark difference between the way that the Turks and the Europeans use their knowledge, and it is demonstrated throughout the novel. It seems more culturally acceptable for the Turks to use their knowledge to help others or to ask for help. This can be seen when the pasha, remembering the narrator’s background in science, astronomy, and engineering summons him and makes him work with Hoja in the creation of the fireworks display. Another instance when we see that the Turks rely upon the knowledge of others is when the sultan questions Hoja at length about various topics ranging from astronomy to the health of the sultan’s lion and the number of cubs the lion would give birth to. These instances demonstrate the culturally acceptable practice the Turks have of asking others for help when one has little to no knowledge in a particular field.
Although there are few European characters in the story, their actions are consistent enough to draw the conclusion that they, unlike the Turks, are concerned primarily with using their knowledge to further their own ambitions. There are several instances early on in the novel where the Europeans use their knowledge for self-beneficial purposes. For example, after being captured and brought to the Turkish captain, the narrator bargains with the captain, first touting his knowledge of astronomy and “nocturnal navigation” and then claiming he was a doctor “to avoid being to the oars”. We see the narrator try again to avoid manual labor, protesting “that I was a doctor, with knowledge of medicine and science.” This behavior is not limited to the narrator. When a group of Spanish slaves are brought into the prison, the narrator found them to be “…silent, ignorant, timid things who had no desire to speak unless to beg for health or food.” From these examples, the European characters are shown to use their knowledge only to advance their own ambitions.
Although the European and Turkish characters use knowledge in different ways, both groups use their knowledge to gain favor and wield power over others. The entire novel is based on the idea that more knowledgable characters will have power over less knowledgable characters. This behavior is apparent from the onset, where the narrator gains favor from his Turkish captors immediately following his capture. The narrator used his wits and knowledge of medicine to convince the Turkish captain that he was a doctor, proceeding to treat the wounds of several Turkish sailors and thus cementing his reputation as a doctor. In exchange for this, the narrator was “saved from the oars,” fulfilling his objective of avoiding manual labor. The narrator again uses his knowledge of medicine in prison to gain the favor of the prison guards, who “treated [the narrator] differently from the rest, and gave me a better cell that caught the sunlight.” More importantly than the Turkish sailors or the prison guards, however, is the pasha. The narrator managed to gain favors from the pasha when he cured the pasha of his cough and shortness of breath. It was from this one instance that led to pasha’s knowing of the narrator’s background in science, which eventually led him to work with Hoja on the fireworks display, and his subsequent and eventual release from prison.
Likewise, Hoja uses his knowledge to gain favors from authority figures and gain power over other characters. From the first meeting between Hoja and the sultan, Hoja is shown to be lusting for influence and power over the sultan’s advisors, constantly referring to them as “fools”, and even saying of the sultan “I will have that fool of a child in the palm of my hand.” To gain the trust of the sultan, Hoja utilizes his –– or more accurately the narrator’s –– knowledge of science and astronomy to craft stories to tell the sultan. In all his meetings with the sultan, Hoja makes use of stories based in scientific facts to tell the sultan favorable things. For example, when asked of his opinion of the sultan’s ailing lion, Hoja makes a prediction that turns out to be correct, winning him accolades from the sultan. Hoja goes on to make favorable predictions throughout the story, such as how many male and female cubs the sultan’s lion would give birth to, how a chase between a rabbit and a wild dog plays out and its significance, and the end of the plague. All this adds up to lend Hoja an air of credibility around the sultan, leading to the sultan granting favors to Hoja such as an estate to gain income from. Gradually, the sultan would grant more favors to Hoja, eventually granting him the autonomy to develop the weapon.
Furthermore, Hoja manipulates the narrator to gain knowledge from him and of him. Hoja promised the narrator at the beginning of their time together that he would free the narrator once the narrator had taught him everything. Over the course of the next two to three decades, the narrator would teach Hoja everything he knew about the natural sciences. In addition, Hoja forced the narrator to teach him everything about his past, where he came from, his family, and his fiancé by sitting opposite each other and writing. This allows Hoja to remain in power over the narrator as he is able to assume the narrator’s identity to the point that even the sultan could not distinguish them apart from the times when both the narrator and Hoja are in the presence of the sultan. Hoja eventually uses his intimate knowledge of the narrator to escape to Italy, while the narrator is unable to assume Hoja’s identity and is forced to go into hiding after the weapon fails.
Up to this point, the narrator and Hoja employ their knowledge in ways typical of the cultures they are from. The narrator uses his knowledge in ways to gain favor from others and further his agenda while also helping others, while Hoja uses his knowledge to wield power over others while also furthering his own agenda. However, the narrator and Hoja begins to resemble to other’s culture when the sultan invited the mimic to impersonate them. The mimic’s act, which deeply insulted Hoja, made him swear to never have to put up with the sultan saying that he “had no intention…of humiliating himself by wasting time with those fools.” The Hoja then proceeded to bury himself in his work of designing and building the weapon, while his lookalike went to the palace. Hoja realizes that his pursuit of scientific knowledge is impeded by the attitudes towards scientific progress carried by the sultan and his entourage. Although it is not fair to say that the sultan is not scientifically minded, he seems to take pleasure in pseudoscience whenever empirical based evidence is not serving to advance his agenda. Hoja regards the sultan and his entourage as fools for believing in pseudoscience, believing that his belief in empirical based science is the superior method, similar to the narrator’s belief shortly after his arrival in Istanbul.
The narrator, on the other hand, begins to dabble in pseudoscientific ways in line with “the fools” as he spends more time with the sultan. The sultan came to realize that the Hoja’s knowledge was passed to him from the narrator, and as a consequence, the narrator gains favor with the sultan. The sultan eventually starts inviting the narrator to events, most notably is when the narrator is invited to mansions belonging to European ambassadors. There, the narrator uses the story of his capture and subsequent rise to power to mislead the Europeans, telling them “incredible stories which I’d learnt to extemporize, just as I did with the sultan, about this exotic land which so fascinated them.” The narrator would twist these stories far beyond reality, knowing that the Europeans would have no way of knowing whether the narrator was being truthful. In the evenings when the narrator went home, he describes Hoja’s plans as “strange models I couldn’t make sense of, drawings, pages covered with disparate scribblings.” The narrator allows himself to indulge in the kind of behavior “the fools” engage in, spreading rumors, lies, and gossip about things that cannot be independently verified through the use of empirical evidence, quite unlike his early years of practicing medicine to treat the sicknesses of those who would set him on the path he has followed.
Although the general consensus is that the narrator embodies the Turkish attitude towards progress, the same cannot be said of Hoja. The lack of context means that we, the readers, do not know much about what the Hoja was like before he met the narrator. Likewise, the lack of other significant European characters forces us to base our assumptions of the European attitude towards progress on the narrator, who as an intellectual, does not represent the vast majority of European society. Furthermore, the actions of the characters were influenced by their circumstance. The narrator manipulated and deceived others during his captivity because he had to, while Hoja manipulated and deceived others to achieve his own goals. The similarity between the two is that both men did what they did to further their own ambitions. So perhaps there is no difference between the European and Turkish attitudes towards progress. Perhaps it is all about gaining power and knowledge to further one’s own ambitions.