@article{2015,title={MAGICAL REALISM AND THE FICTIONAL FUNCTION OF SUPERSTITION IN NAZLI ERAY’S NARRATIVES},abstractNode={The aim of this article is to examine the purpose, forms and effects of the usage of supernatural folkloric material such as fortune-telling, magic and mediumship, called superstition, in the works of Nazlı Eray who is known for her extraordinary fictions. Superstition points into an illogical unreal domain and therefore is used frequently in the fantastic and magical realist narratives. In particular, superstition and false beliefs are important in the Latin American magical realism. While Nazlı Eray describes her own narrative style as magical realism, superstition is used in her texts in a different way than in the Latin American magical realist texts. Following an introduction of the genre of magical realism, this article attempts to explain the relation between Nazlı Eray’s narratives and magical realist texts. Then, it proposes that in contrast to the way superstition is used in the Latin American magical realists texts, such motifs have a fictional function in Nazlı Eray’s narratives. It is illustrated with examples that the primary function of the motif of superstition in the fantastic worlds invented by Nazlı Eray is to enable the transition from natural to supernatural. Furthermore, it is observed that these motifs gain a second functionality as the social hierarchy is broken thanks to such transitions bringing the discourses of various social circles and classes together on the same platform. At this point, when discussing the functional values of superstition within these narratives, the article draws upon the main concepts in Bakhtin’s theory of novel, such as carnivalization and chronotope. Eray creates carnivalesque environments in her narratives by juxtaposing},author={Nihayet ARSLAN},year={2015},journal={The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies}}