The Wild Woman Archetype: A Comparative Study of Motif Correspondence Between “Bluebeard” and the Turkish Fairy Tale “İğci̇ Baba”

Abstract

Given that myths and tales are living and memory areas of archetypes, in this study the French tale “Bluebeard” and the Turkish fairy tale “İğci Baba” are compared both in terms of the wild woman archetype and the motif correspondence based on this archetype. In this respect, two tales are analysed based on archetypal criticism. Moreover, archetypal criticism paves the way for imagery analysis by making it possible to see the collective, universal, and archetypal image of women to be seen through the motif correspondence associated with the wild woman archetype. The correspondence of motifs based on the wild woman archetype makes it possible to compare “Bluebeard” and “İğci Baba”, which are texts from different geographical regions, cultures, and eras. The wild woman archetype and the motifs in the two tales, such as initiation, the forbidden secret room, the irresistible curiosity and desire to know, and the key, are strikingly similar. The encounter with the wild woman archetype in two texts can be explained by the suprapersonal, supracultural and universal character of the archetypes, and the strong correspondence between the two texts based on similar motifs can be explained by the universality of the fairy tales and supracultural motifs.