Contextual Framework of Mad and Madness-Themed Narratives -The Sample of Denizli-

Abstract

The phenomenon of madness which mostly concerns the field of psychology at the individual level, also concerns the discipline of folklore, given its relationship with culture. Anonymous understanding tends to produce reasons for eliminating the uneasiness of the anomaly and normalize the event or phenomenon it faces by clarifying the situation through these reasons. In response to the non-normative person, situation, event or facts, the answers put forward by the public thought constitute a folkloric structure in terms of their organizations and functions. Madness is one of the concepts that are considered out of the norm in folk thought. The set of verbal narratives around the phenomenon of madness is the product of the effort and process of anonymous thought to understand, explain and normalize this concept and make it a part of everyday life. These narratives are important reference points in understanding the fiction, logic and functioning of the response mechanism in the face of anomaly. By evaluating the way in which people reflect on their judgment and reflections on various creations, it will be possible to reach information such as what the collective mind puts against the mind and what a healthy mind structure should be according to the public thought. In this context, the way that folklore deals with the phenomenon of madness should be to show the dimension of meaning within the cultural field and focus on the folkloric content of this dimension, rather than seeing the data as a psychopathological picture. When the information, thought and art dimensions of the narratives about mad and madness compiled in the district of Denizli are considered, their dependence on the language they are the product and their metamorphosis in execution, it is seen that it is necessary to evaluate the total in accordance with a text, texture and contextoriented analysis model. These narratives, in which form and content point to text, language and style to texture, and variance to the importance of context, should be considered within the context of public knowledge because they were founded by these three elements. In the creation of these narratives, In the stage of creating these mad-themed narratives, it is identified that the form and content of the communication between the narrator and the listener, the prevailing views about madness in the region, and the proximity of the narrator with the madman who is the hero of the narrative are effective. In this study, insanity will be considered as a cultural phenomenon rather than a psychological one and will be evaluated within the social context. In this study, the contextual analysis of the mad-themed narratives compiled in Denizli will be made through the constituent elements such as structure, content and function.