When hearing the word “myth”, one may imagine an epic similar to that of the Odyssey where humans are directed by fate alone in a far off, mystical land. In her novel Berji Kristin: Tales of The Garbage Hills, Latife Tekin prompts readers to reconsider their understanding of myths as something remote and fantastical. She presents a modern-day myth set in a slum community surviving on the outskirts of Istanbul and centers her narrative around the everyday struggles and triumphs of marginalized people. In Nicholas Bredie’s review of the novel, he presents the question for those living in these outlandish communities: is their lack of choice their defining characteristic as it is in most classical myths? While I do agree with Bredie that language …show more content…
First, Tekin uses the wind and bulldozers to display how forces outside of the residents’ control oppress their way of life, and how they uniquely adapt to overcome these hardships. In the opening chapters of the novel, as Flower Hill just begins to form, she depicts the residents’ constant battle with the wind. It is unrelenting and devastating to the people as their houses and belongings were “picked to bits, tossed aside and blown in all directions” (14). Kristin personifies the wind and gives it a more active role as an overwhelming force that the residents have to endure. As the wind is a natural force, it illustrates the lack of control the residents of Flower Hill have over their environment, leaving them with no option but to respond to its destructive impacts. Despite their helplessness, Tekin highlights the residents’ unique ability to adapt to their environment. She describes how the “squatters climbed out on the roofs and lay down flat to stop them taking off” and “became accustomed to walking sideways, hands pressed to their sides, bowing their heads as they walked” (23, …show more content…
These negative rumors create a hierarchy that alienates the gypsies from the rest of Flower Hill. Members of Flower Hill thus have agency over their stories and how it affects others in the community. Later in the novel, western cinema takes hold of the community and women begin to dress modestly and show skin. Haci Hasan, a muezzin at one of the mosques, disapproved of this and faked his daughter’s death and miraculous resurrection, reasoning that “God had brought her back to this world as a lesson to the women who walked with bare legs and arms and their hair uncovered”. By framing his daughter's supposed resurrection as a divine lesson for women who dress immodestly, he attempts to exert control over societal norms. The story of Haci Hasan’s daughter spread rapidly throughout Flower Hill and the women “wrapped themselves in black cloaks”. The community’s trust in oral tradition is evident despite the impossibility of the story and this trust grants Hasan agency over his community, allowing him to shape and enforce cultural norms through storytelling. The author reinforces the importance of oral tradition by illustrating the community's rejection of alternative methods of
...turned east onto the gravel country road and then onto the track which led back to the old house with the rusted hogwire strung around it and the stunted elm trees standing up leafless inside the rusted wire.” (125). In this line the fence represents the emotional wall that the brothers have erected to keep everyone out. Then Victoria comes and gives their house homey touches and they realize that they can’t keep everyone out forever. “Now the wind started up in the trees, high up, moving the high branches. The barn swallows came out and began to hunt leaf-bugs and lacewinged flies in the dusk. The air grew soft.” (301).
In his research on mythology, Eric Csapo examines its large role in the ancient Mediterranean. He begins with a rejection to begin his argument with a definition of myth. He states that “it [the definition] is rather always the final precipitate of an already elaborate theory” so he starts at the basis of any theoretical interpretation, he asks what we mean by “myth.” Csapo immediately addresses the flaw of selectivity in the vocabulary used to describe a story. Most commonly the words myth, folktale, and legend are confused and misappropriated. One delineation he discusses is that myths, in theory, are based on ritual and as a product of humans, are received as true accounts of the past. He continues with the discrepancy of the word truth that anthropologists struggle with. This said, Csapo ultimately rejects these confining definitions for their cross-cultural differences and ends with the notion that myth is a social ideology that stresses the reception over the content.
Seger, Linda. “Creating the Myth.” Rites of passage: A Thematic Reader. Catharine Fraga and Hudie Rae. Heinle and Heinle, Australia 2002. 123-131. Print
Foster defines myth as a forming and managing force of a story and its images; our capacity to clarify ourselves; myths are so profoundly instilled our social memory that they both shape our culture and are formed by it.
The novel tells the story of, Amir. Amir is portrayed as the protagonist; the novel revolves around his recollection of past events 26 years ago as a young boy in Afghanistan. Amir is adventures and brave. Hassan is Amir’s closets friend and servant to his house and is portrayed as a subservient male, often supporting and accepting blame for Amir’s actions. Assef, Wali and Kamal are the “ bad guys” within the novel; Wali and Kamal hold down Hassan and Assef rapes him purely for ethnicity differences, as Hassan is a Hazara. Afghanistan boys are supposed to be athletic and true to Islam .The leaving of Soraya Hassan mother with another man gives the notion that women lack morality leaving behind there children .The Taliban laws are followed closely within Afghanistan and women are treated without any rights, beatings, stoning and execution become the reality for women who violate the laws. Culturally Afghanistan women are portrayed to be subservient to there husband only live and breath to provide children, cook food and clean their
The “popular use of the word myth to denote something that is thought by many people to be “true,” but actually is not true can be examined through history. Today’s current understanding of myth is: “A traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or heroor event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a naturalexplanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigodsand explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature,istories or matter of this kind,iany invented story, idea, or concept,ian imaginary or fictitious thing or person,ian unproved or false collective belief that is
Williams Paden discusses the world building character of myths and their capacity to shape time and delineate scared and profane space for the communities that believe and transmit them. In William Paden, “Myth,” in Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion, he explains that within religious worlds, myths set a foundation that advance to shape a person’s way of life. Subsequently, they shape their belief and conscience. His theory relates to an element an indigenous story which is the creation story precisely the story of the turtle island. For the Ojibway and Anishinaabe people, the creation story was used as a grounding prototype to shape their belief and their outlook on how the world was created. The story shows how myth is being
From before the dawn of civilization as we know it, humanity has formed myths and legends to explain the natural world around them. Whether it is of Zeus and Hera or Izanami-no-Mikoto and Izanagi-no-mikoto, every civilization and culture upon this world has its own mythos. However, the age of myth is waning as it is overshadowed in this modern era by fundamental religion and empirical science. The word myth has come to connote blatant falsehood; however, it was not always so. Our myths have reflected both the society and values of the culture they are from. We have also reflected our inner psyche, conscious and unconscious, unto the fabric of our myths. This reflection allows us to understand ourselves and other cultures better. Throughout the eons of humanity’s existence, the myths explain natural phenomena and the cultural legends of the epic hero have reflected the foundations and the inner turmoil of the human psyche.
Myths relate to events, conditions, and deeds of gods or superhuman beings that are outside ordinary human life and yet basics to it” ("Myth," 2012). Mythology is said to have two particular meanings, “the corpus of myths, and the study of the myths, of a particular area: Amerindian mythology, Egyptian mythology, and so on as well as the study of myth itself” ("Mythology," 1993). In contrast, while the term myth can be used in a variety of academic settings, its main purpose is to analyze different cultures and their ways of thinking. Within the academic setting, a myth is known as a fact and over time has been changed through the many different views within a society as an effort to answer the questions of human existence. The word myth in an academic context is used as “ancient narratives that attempt to answer the enduring and fundamental human questions: How did the universe and the world come to be? How did we come to be here? Who are we? What are our proper, necessary, or inescapable roles as we relate to one another and to the world at large? What should our values be? How should we behave? How should we not behave? What are the consequences of behaving and not behaving in such ways” (Leonard, 2004 p.1)? My definition of a myth is a collection of false ideas put together to create
Originally, myths, or Dreamtime stories, were not expressed simply in verbal or written form but were enacted, chanted, painted, cost...
“A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.” ― Rollo May
Thury, Eva and Margaret K. Devinney. “Theory: Man and His Symbols.” Introduction to Mythology: Contemporary Approaches to Classical and World Myths. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. 519-537. Print.
It is vital to understand what Barthes means by myth. In short, myth is a type of speech chosen by history; a type of communication that can be interpreted by a combination of signs. Barthes’ research on languages enabled him to conclude to semiological science, his theory of signs. There are three parts to a myth: the signifier, the signified, and a cross of the two, the sign. Barthes also refers to myth as depolitized speech in that an object, or signifier, is automatically linked to the individual thought, or signified, which differs with each culture or foundation of the individual. That being said, myth is not restricted to oral speech. It also includes written text or visual images, like an advertisement. The interpretation of this speech or these texts or images, are culturally determined, and more specifically, by the economics of culture. Myth often twists the truth of the m...
Campbell describes myths as “the search for meaning; for an experience of being alive” (Power of Myth). “That every myth every legend is true,” and is “metaphorical of the human and cosmic myster...
One modernist author, Herman Broch, discusses his approach to mythology in his essay “The Style of the Mythical Age.” His focus is on understanding and using archetypes as a way of analyzing mythology. He says, “Myth is the archetype of every phenomenal cognition of which the human mind is capable,” (102). For Broch, Modernist literature is a return to the mythic; myth is the only way in which the world may be understo...