Karagöz-Hacivat Oyunlarında Doğa İkilemi
Contradiction of Nature in Karagöz-Hacivat Plays

Summary/Abstract: Traditional shadow plays problematize human-nonhuman and nature-culture relations, revealing both the interconnectedness between Anatolian people with the physical environment and the ways in which such material entanglements are contingent on an ethics of power and control over the natural world. In this way, shadow theatre in Anatolian culture dramatizes a contradiction in human attitudes towards nature. Shadow plays (Karagöz-Hacivat plays) ironically portray nature and material beings both as sentient beings that contribute to the human realm and as ill-omened and malicious environments suitable for chaos and outlaws where social boundaries vanish. Therefore, a ‘natural’ environment which is supposed to be fertile turns into a threatening place feared and hated by human beings. Likewise, in many shadow plays, natural environments are home to venomous beings menacing the ‘harmonious’ order of the civilized system. Within this framework, this study will examine some Karagöz plays attributing both positive and negative connotations and assigning threatening roles to nature.

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