The tragic ending in Ehmedê Xanî’s work; is the death of Mem and Zîn an absurd ending or a romantic catharsis where love is crowned with death?
The Death of Mem û Zîn: Absurd or Catharsis?
The tragic ending in Ehmedê Xanî’s Mem û Zîn can be read from two basic philosophical perspectives: Is it a dead end of meaninglessness that confronts Albert Camus’s concept of the “absurd,” or should it be seen as the “exaltation of love through death” (Aufhebung) of Hegelian dialectics? This question deepens the fundamental contradictions of human existence (meaning/absurd, freedom/destiny).
- Camus’s Absurd in Context: “A Meaningless Resistance”
According to Camus, the absurd is the conflict between man’s search for meaning and the silent indifference of the universe. Although Sisyphus knows the futility of his efforts to lift the rock to the top, he rebels with this awareness. The death of Mem and Zin carries a similar paradox:
The Impossibility of Love: Mem and Zin’s desire to be together is systematically thwarted by the strict laws of the feudal order (the Bey’s power, Bekir’s betrayal). This corresponds to Camus’s “irrationality of the world.”
Conscious Tragedy: Mem refuses to live in a world without Zin. This choice is a response to the “philosophical problem of suicide” (Camus): death is not a surrender to the absurd, but a radical form of confrontation with it. Unlike Camus, however, Mem’s act does not seem like a “rebellion,” but an acceptance of fate.
The Aesthetics of the Meaningless: Does Xanî romanticize the absurd by “beautifying” death (the scene of Zin’s death at his grave)? Camus does not glorify meaninglessness even when he says that Sisyphus is “happy”; Xani transforms tragedy into a kind of lyrical resistance.
- Hegelian-Romantic Catharsis: “The Glorification of Love through Death”
According to Hegel, tragedy is the dialectical overcoming of contradictions. Antigone’s death is a glorification in which moral conflict is overcome by the “soul.” The ending of Mem û Zîn offers a similar catharsis:
Unity in Death: As in Hegel’s concept of “spirit” (Geist), the true realization of love is possible only beyond physical boundaries. The union in the grave is the transformation of sensory love into spiritual love.
Overcoming Social Contradiction: The feudal order undermines its own legitimacy by destroying love. The death of Mem and Zin is an ethical victory that reveals the violence of power (as in Hegel’s “master-slave dialectic”).
Romantic Sublime: As in Schiller’s romantic tragedy, death is a means of sublimation that renders love “eternal.” Zin’s tomb becomes, no longer a dungeon, but the symbolic space of freedom.
- The Conflict of Two Readings: Absurd or Dialectic?
Camus’s Objection: Hegelian catharsis conceals the absurd by attributing meaning to death. Yet Mem’s last words (“O Zin, I have come!”) are more a confession of despair than a hope.
Hegel’s Response: The absurd arises only from the incompleteness of historical dialectics. The death of Mem û Zîn is a stage for the awakening of social consciousness (as in Marx’s “historical materialism”).
The Two Faces of Tragedy
Xanî’s text contains both Camus’s absurdist rebellion and Hegelian dialectics:
Reading the Absurd: Love and death are proof of man’s fragility in a meaningless world.
Reading the Catharsis: Death is a revolution that immortalizes love in the plane of history and spirit.
Perhaps Xanî’s real message is this: only through awareness of the absurd (Camus) and spiritual elevation (Hegel) can man break his “chains.” The tomb of Mem û Zîn is the embodiment of this paradox.
