Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar’ın Romanlarında Baykuş
Owl in the Novels of Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar

Summary/Abstract: Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar is one of the most prolific writers in all of Turkish literature. He made extensive use of themes from daily life throughout his work, including aspects of social life, colloquial speech, neighbourhood life, and the expressive richness of traditional Turkish performance arts. Gürpınar also used humour, namely to direct to criticize people who believe in traditional dogma and superstitions a little too much. He himself believes that you can resolve with reason and science. His novels feature owls in them – which, in Turkish culture, are believed to bring death and bad luck. The study before you surveys nineteen of the author’s novels (out of forty) containing references to owls, and quotes the chapters alluding to those references as well as studies how Gürpınar interpreted them. Our findings show us that almost all of them deal with death and bad luck, and that he focus on the owl’s negative characteristics – with one exception: Deli Filozof, in which the owl is the narrator of the book yet not directly mentioned. In short, almost all of Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar’s references to owls take root in Turkish folk beliefs.

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