الفولكلور والأساطير في رواية بختيار علي شجرة الرمان الأخيرة ورواية زورا هيرستون كانت عيونهم تحدّق في الله

الملخص

This study examines how folklore and mythology function in literature as vessels for cultural identity and a sense of belonging, through a comparative analysis of a modern Iraqi Kurdish novel and an African American novel. Focusing on Bachtyar Ali’s The Last Pomegranate Tree (2003) and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), the research explores the ways in which each work interweaves folk narratives, myths, and oral traditions to articulate the values, history, and identity of their respective communities. A qualitative comparative approach is employed, drawing on folklore studies and cultural identity theory to analyze how storytelling and myth-making help preserve communal identity amid historical trauma and marginalization. The study finds that in both Iraqi Kurdish and African American contexts, integrating folklore and myth into literature reinforces a shared heritage and resilience, providing characters and readers alike with an anchor to their cultural roots and an affirmation of belonging. These narrative traditions, while culturally specific, perform parallel roles in sustaining group identity and collective memory across disparate cultural experiences. This research seeks to contribute to comparative literary scholarship by demonstrating how folklore and mythology function as vital strategies of cultural survival and identity-making across two distinct marginalized traditions. By placing Bachtyar Ali’s The Last Pomegranate Tree alongside Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the study aims to prove that, despite differences of geography, language, and history, both authors employ traditional narratives, myths, folktales, oral traditions, and symbolic archetypes, not as decorative elements but as foundational tools for preserving communal memory, resisting cultural erasure, and affirming both personal and collective identity. In doing so, the research underscores the universality of folklore and myth as literary vehicles of resilience and belonging.