Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
MILLI FOLKLOR, sa.135, ss.95-106, 2022 (AHCI)
Kendi Gecesinde written by Inci Aral in 2014 offers a model of using the shadow play which is the one of the genres in folk theatre in a new esthetical form. The novel whose each chapter begins with the description of Karagoz and Hacivat includes both a character called Kara who is the son of Karagoz and a text as staging with rewriting Karagoz. As a result of this explicit presence of Karagoz, the novel can be analyzed with the theories of intertextuality and rewriting. Hacivat and especially Karagoz are carried into the novel context, they become the part, even the reflection of the main theme, support the novel with both the thematic and the seman-tic aspect and take a crucial role in understanding and interpreting of firstly the protagonist and the rest. It should be mentioned that, the process of understanding that the novel reveals is not one-way; not only Karagoz en-lighten the characters of the novel but also Karagoz is reinterpreted through the protagonist. Aral's approach is parallel to the context-oriented folklore approach and she evaluates Karagoz in her own novel as a text which is emancipating, rich in terms of imagination, intense in social, political and sexual references. The function of the protagonist is to convey her approaches to the readers. The protagonist develops a self-awareness by ques-tioning and criticizing social norms, "normality ", "reality ", manhood, femininity definitions and the notions such as self, difference, otherness, sexuality, social gender, family, freedom etc. thanks to Karagoz that narrates a polyphonic universe which is open to diverse existence forms. Again the same way, Karagoz is interpreted as a text which awakens up such consciousness on its recipients. According to Aral such texts whose power orig-inated from imagination and humor and make its recipients conscious while giving them fun with world full of pleasure and joy should be rewritten. She does not appreciate Karagoz only in terms of characters and content but also she finds a high esthetic and artistic value in it. These are her poetological, literary reasons in order to rewrite Karagoz. From her point of view, comic Karagoz texts are more interesting, more relaxing and more nuanced than tragic texts for people who are already exposed to daily problems. While she put forwards Karagoz as unique and effective in terms of its structural and esthetical characteristics, at the same time she supports rewriting of Karagoz with ideological reasons. She shares her thought with the readers that through her protag-onist, there is a need a text like Karagoz in her time she lived. In order to reflect all kind of current social and political issues from the stage Karagoz is an appropriate medium. She is not pleased with the existing adapta-tions of Karagoz. Karagoz which is full of social, political and sexual implications should be rewritten with both conserving traditional essence and benefiting from technological opportunities of the era and should been lively, impressive and attractive for the audiences. The author exhibits concretely her offers about how tradition and modernization should be handled through the preparation for Cabaret Kara and the draft text of Karagoz written by the main character who is transformed a puppeteer. In this context, this article aims to interpret Karagoz which is rewritten by the author's poetological and ideological necessities in the light of the notion of tradition and modernization.