A Social Background of Turkish Culture and a Mythical View of Orhan Pamuk’s The Red-Haired Woman

Abstract

This paper aims to bring the concept of ‘Myth’ and the historical view of Orhan Pamuk's The Red-Haired Woman. This research is based on ‘New Historicism’ and given prominence to textual aspects. For two decades, readers have been inspired not only by the distant past in symbols but also by colors hardly seen in previous texts. It could not be a surprise to learn that the themes of his The Red-Haired Woman are repression and amnesia. The researcher has tried to focus on ‘collective unconsciousness’ through the protagonist’s mythical background. This fiction gives a daring approach to reading canonical works such as Oedipus Rex, Rostam and Sohrab, and its discussion of patricide and paternal filicide, i.e., re-reading the myth to uncover the hidden fact behind the historical text through historical aspects. Furthermore, in the novel The Red-Haired Woman many archetypal images are discussed as history served as torch for this research paper.