What do Keloğlan stories say about masculine anxieties and reclaiming masculinity?

Abstract

Keloğlan stories deliver an anti-patriarchal message. The stories interpreted in this article narrate the male ego’s journey of individuation through an engagement with repressed psychic content, particularly the “shadow.” This allows the emergence of mature masculinity in the form of the “trickster” type. Keloğlan stories present a humble, but powerful, masculinity and show that, while patriarchy has a long and cross-cultural history, so does discontent with it. Scholarship on masculinity remains focused on European-origin tales, but the Keloğlan stories show that feminist views of masculinity are not foreign to Anatolian folklore.