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“Cinema Grande” and the Rhetoric of Illusion in Uyurkulak's Har

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Meltem Gürle
Meltem Gürle*
Affiliation:
School of Foreign Languages, Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, Turkey, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article traces the patterns of irony and the carnivalesque in Murat Uyurkulak's fantastic fiction Har, focusing especially on the depiction of a group of misfits, yamuklar (the crooked), as portrayed in the central chapter, “Cinema Grande.” Arguing that a reconfigured carnival spirit finds its way into Uyurkulak's novel, the article explores from a Bakhtinian perspective the ways in which the author offers a modern version of popular festive elements, especially the jester or the fool who signifies the symbolic destruction of authority and resistance to the mechanisms of power. The employment of the carnivalesque enables the author not only to speak of what is essentially unspeakable, but also to displace the illusion of progress fabricated by authority. This turns out to be possible only through artistic illusion. By focusing on the portrayal of the outcasts in Cinema Grande, this article also draws attention to the different representations of madness in Atay's “disconnected” and Uyurkulak's “crooked.”

Keywords

Uyurkulakillusioncarnivalmadnessmodernism
Type
Articles
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 36: Special Issue on Literature and the Nation , Spring 2007 , pp. 125 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2007

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