Epiphany in Sudden Fiction

This study aims at finding the common points between epiphany as a literary concept and sudden fiction genre and demonstrating them through sample stories. Epiphany which is the means/technique/experience of explaining spiritual insights has ontological feature and shares with philosophical and open-ended sudden fiction momentary perception, poetic nature and the power of leading to the permanent changes in behaviours. Both in epiphany and sudden fiction, seemingly ordinary and known phenomena, with their different aspects are shown and the individual experiences gain universal particularity. The common purpose of epiphany and sudden fiction is to make the reader sense the truths about the essence of life/being, adopt new points of view and gain the habit of exercising this process for other experiences. The epiphany in sudden fiction, like the ones in other genres, begins at the ending/closure leaving a shocking impact on the reader. It motives her/him to experience a rapid emotional and intellectual process and to produce new understandings, values and beliefs on the particular event/phenomenon and to internalize them. In this context, sudden fiction directly reminds us of epiphany. With its concise texture, it prescribes that accepted truths should be questioned and rebuilt by new views. The reader, by experiencing epiphany, will once again remember that truths are relative and see that evaluating events/phenomena by different views affects life positively. This is the main function of literature; epiphany and sudden fiction actualize this function together