@article{article_1761896, title={Teleology and Ateleology in the Desert Archetype: Comparative Readings of Yusuf and Zuleikha and The Waste Land within the Framework of Myth, Liminality, and Cultural Memory}, journal={Bartın Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi}, volume={10}, pages={41–60}, year={2025}, DOI={10.70916/buefd.1761896}, author={Sarıbaş, Serap}, keywords={çöl akretipi, mit ve liminalite, Yusuf ve Züleyha, Çorak Ülke}, abstract={This study compares Yusuf and Zuleikha and The Waste Land within the framework of teleological and ateleological constructions of the “desert/waste land” archetype. It draws on a four-disciplinary framework incorporating Mircea Eliade’s sacred/profane dialectic, Victor Turner’s liminality theory, Northrop Frye’s archetypal criticism, and Jan Assmann’s cultural memory theory. In Yusuf and Zuleikha, the desert is a purposeful testing ground within the divine order; the famine is managed with revelation-based foresight and justice, ending in social cohesion and moral renewal. Within a teleological structure, crisis serves the cycle of transformation and rebirth. Cultural memory is sustained through a religious context; the archetypal winter turns to spring. In The Waste Land, the desert is a symbolic plane whose meaning has eroded. Sacred signs appear as aesthetic remnants detached from their contexts; the liminal process remains incomplete, and renewal does not occur. The ateleological structure results in ongoing suspension and fragmented cultural memory. The archetypal cycle is withheld, turning the desert into a “space of ultimate void.” The study shows that the desert archetype is not universal but a flexible narrative structure shaped by culture and context. In one tradition, it is a “space of healing,” in the other, a “space of stasis.” This contrast highlights the role of cultural, theological, and mnemonic infrastructures in producing meaning in literary archetypes. The findings reveal the necessity of contextual and interdisciplinary approaches in archetypal analysis. The desert thus emerges not only as a spatial backdrop but as an epistemic mirror reflecting a culture’s existential trial.}, number={2}, publisher={Bartın Üniversitesi}