THE GREEN NIGHT NOVEL FROM THE ASPECT OF FOLK BELIEFS AND WISDOM

Abstract

Re?at Nuri Güntekin is a successful novelist who valued the customs and traditions of his people and thus had treated such cultural elements in his literary work. Güntekin stated that he got to know Anatolia as a child and that he had travelled several Anatolian towns after becoming a teacher. In this way he became acquainted with local problems and expressed that it was necessary to consciously focus on Anatolia. Re?at Nuri Güntekin has, to a large extent, focused on issues concerning society in his novels. Through his novel The Green Night, which can be labelled as the novel of ?post- reform Turkey?, Güntekin has presented the reader with the importance given to madrasah education (religious education) in Anatolia within the Ottoman society and the struggle against religious fanatics through the eyes of a progressive teacher. Again with this novel Güntekin has widely used local elements and displayed the belief-based lifestyle predominant in society through the setting and characters he created. This article mainly focuses on the folk beliefs and wisdom in The Green Night by Güntekin which, unlike his other novels, was written with an ideological stance. The folk beliefs and wisdom which are present in the novel are described through the struggle between the dominant mentality based on religious view and the new mentality based on secular view.