Türkiye masallarında toplumsal cinsiyet ve mekan ilişkisi

Abstract

Between folk tales and society there exists a complex relationship, the nature of which is understood in different ways from one dicipline to another. Furthermore, the apparent relationship of folk tales to society shifts acoording to whether one regards the folk tale as a record and reflection of society, as a normative influence on its reader or listener, or as a combination of both. Within the context of analysing tales as social records, the reflection of the cultural codes of the very society in which they live in, reveals the relation between literature and society. It has been long known that the customs of the society is continued and re-produced through the functions of oral phase (tradition). The gender roles are also based on the same traditional texture. Hence, in this thesis, 32 folk tales have been chosen and analyzed on the basis of gender and space. The spaces in folk tales are classified as private, intermediate and public and the way both men and women use those spaces, are analyzed on the basis of these categories. The ‘home’, the ‘window’ and ‘outside of home’ are used as exemplars of private, intermediate and public spaces respectively. The home, which forms almost the entire living space of women, supports the integrity of the family and therefore it must be defended. The relation between the window and the characters is read through the function of ‘virgin’s get out of home’ in order to institutionalize the family. On the other hand, the most important feature of the public space is that it belongs to men. Therefore, any woman, who gets out of home feels the need of purification and self-defense. Besides, in order to survive at outside without a man, a woman should be like a man, in other words, she should dress like a man. In folk tales, to the biological sex roles correspond to the gender roles of men and women and the hierarchical structure of the home is constructed accordingly. Thus, it can be said that the customs of the society are perpetuated and re-produced through the functions of tales as traditional oral literature.