“ÜÇ TURUNÇLAR” MASALININ ARKETİPSEL VE SEMBOLİK YAPISI ÜZERİNE BİR İNCELEME
A STUDY ON THE ARCHETYPAL AND SYMBOLIC STRUCTURE OF THE TALE “THE THREE ORANGES”

Summary/Abstract: This study examines the tale “The Three Oranges,” one of the significant examples of the Turkish folk tale tradition, through the framework of Carl Gustav Jung’s archetype theory. The aim of the research is to reveal the functions of the tale’s symbols in the individual’s process of attaining psychic wholeness. A qualitative research design has been adopted, and the archetypal–symbolic analysis method has been employed by focusing on the archetypes associated with the individuation process-namely anima, shadow, persona, the mother, and the father. The tale begins with the motif of childlessness, which signifies a lack of inner completeness. The dervish figure enters the narrative as the initiator of the transformative process that resolves this deficiency, while the gifting of the apple and the birth of the child mark the beginning of a new phase of transformation on both individual and cosmic levels. The hero’s journey parallels the stages Jung identifies in the individuation process: the hero first confronts his shadow, then encounters the anima, and finally transcends the limiting aspect of the persona to approach psychological truth. Symbols such as water, the bird, the feather, the apple, the giant, the desert, and the old woman serve as concrete manifestations of the hero’s inner transformation. The fairy girl who emerges successively from the three oranges does not represent different aspects of the anima; rather, she embodies the repeated reappearance of the same ideal feminine image. The girl can only be sustained in the third encounter, when the prince is sufficiently conscious and mature to engage with this image. Her failure to be united with water in the first two attempts indicates that the anima has not yet been accepted within the psyche and that the conditions required for psychic integration have not matured. In this context, “The Three Oranges” is not merely a love story but a multi-layered narrative depicting the individual’s confrontation with his darker aspects and movement toward union with the true self. The tale presents a symbolic narrative of integration by juxtaposing the mother and father archetypes with both the immature (shadow-influenced) and the integrated, mature forms of the anima.

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