Fantastic Universe in Bernard-Marie Koltès' Sallinger Play

Abstract

Sallinger is a play by B-M.Koltès which is inspired by the topics of the famous American writer J. David Salinger. This play which emerged from the imagination of the author is a prototype of his future style, language and motifs. With the ability to present the unreal as well as the real, Koltès creates a universe with a mixture fantastic and real. In the play, an extraordinary, surprising, frightening, astonishing, suspenseful strange world unfolds. In this article the criteria of the fantastic theory systematized by Tzvetan Todorov have been put forward, in order to understand what kind of fantasy literature keeps the reader in the field of uncertainty and to read Sallinger's play with the fantastic method. The theorist puts forward three conditions for the fantastic: The reader should be uncertain about the ordinary and the extraordinary narratives in the text. This uncertainty should also be felt by the character and the reader should identify with the character. They should take a stand against the text, rejecting allegorical (connotational) and poetic interpretation. Because fantastic reading is a special way of reading, Todorov especially underlines the need to read the work from beginning to end and places great responsibilities on the reader. In Sallinger, the reader first enters a normal universe and thinks that the play will be ordinary, but later they encounter an unreal universe when the suicidal protagonist suddenly appears and disappears in time and space. The appearing and disappearing of the hero is quite complex with its structure that disrupts the traditional time, place and plot. The reader asks questions like: Is this a dream? Is this real? Is this a flashback? Is it a mystical journey from the other world to this world? Is this a journey in time and space? Is this a stroll in memories? Is it a dream within a dream or a play within a play? In this article the answers to these questions were sought in line with the criteria of fantastic theory, the entire text was read, analyzed and interpreted based on the scene descriptions and the lines of the characters.