A FOLK TALE COMPARISON: RAPUNZEL AND MAHBUB-I DILBER

Folk tales, like myths, are the product of the common experiences of humanity. They describe the abstract laws, which bear the traces of the common life style of all humanity, that is, an essential part of being human, in a concrete language. Thus, they revive the values that have almost sunk into oblivion. When the folk tales of various world societies are compared, they prove that a cultural code that exists in one society can exist in another. This suggests that every community can find a place for itself in the global cultural industry today and that preventing the disappearance of local cultures in the face of uniformization is indeed possible. The revival of every local folk tale transferred to the field of cultural industry helps generations that grow with the cultural codes of the West to draw the boundaries of their own cultural identity. Regarding Anatolian folk tales, that the Western version of “Nardaniye Hanım” is “Snow White,” the Western version of “Nohut Oğlan (Chickpea Boy)” is “Finger Child”, and the Western version of “Küllü Fatma” is “Cinderella” has been confirmed by folklorists. Collected in the city of Adıyaman, the “Mahbub-ı Dilber” (as patient as Job) folk tale has been found out to be a counterpart of “Rapunzel”, which was compiled by Grimm Brothers. In the present study, Rapunzel and Mahbub-ı Dilber tales were analyzed comparatively, aiming to reveal the similar and different cultural codes they have. Moreover, considering the universal dimension of the folk tale, it was found that the abstract laws of the tale remain the same regardless of the local culture. Both tales were found to have similar and different aspects. It was concluded that by converting such Anatolian tales into products in the main and sub-sectors of the cultural industry, they can be transferred to new generations.

Keywords

Rapunzel, Mahbub-ı Dilber, Folk Tale, Comparative Method Cultural Industry.