Black as A Redeeming Hero in My Name is Red

This article applies Joseph Campbell’s mythological perspective to discuss Black’s character as a redeemer in Orhan Pamuk’s My Name Is Red (2002). This is done through discussing him as a lover whose dialogic interaction with the outside world helps him restore peace and order in an exemplary multicultural Ottoman society of the sixteenth century that is suffering gradual disappearance under the pressure of monologic strategies of communication. The strategies include Eastern and Western traditions of painting and a religious anti-painting one which refutes the other two as blasphemous. This investigation challenges the dominant reviews of MNR as a pessimistic political allegory that regrets the disappearance of traditional Turkish cultural identity, and argues that MNR develops an optimistic stand toward cultural formation through detailing Black’s practice of self-understanding and adaptability. Highlighting the notion of life-and-death struggle, this article introduces Black as a reviver whose success is signified through his marital reunion.