UKH Journal of Social Sciences | Volume 5 • Number 1 • 2021 42

Love and Emancipation in Forough Farrokhzad's Selected

Poems: A Psycho-analytical Approach

Mariwan Hasan

1,a*

, Saman Ali Mohammed

2,b

Department of English, College of Basic Education, University of Sulaimani, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq

Department of English, College of Languages, University of Human Development, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq

E-mail:

mariwan152@live.com,

saman.mohammed@uhd.edu.iq

1. Introduction

Love is a fundamental universal force. Pleasure, sensations and desire, though having similar meanings, along with love

also compromise the very fabric of man and Forough’s poetry. How are these concepts dealt with in Forough’s poetry?

People without caring about their age and cultural identity are reliably in the quest of finding true love; the affection

that fills their reality with life’s joy; some people might be skeptical that their loved ones could be disloyal to them. They

have a specific meaning for painful adoration and torture, yet how does Forough describe them (Farrokhzad, 1970).

Do people’s opinions of real love and superficial love have an identifiable meaning as offered by the ordinary people

in her poems. We need to discover the true meaning of real love and superficial love in general to overcome all the

barriers for both men and women to express themselves. In most cases, such barriers become like chains around the

neck of women like slaves. The theme of real love and superficial love in Forough’s (1970) selected poems will be

explored later in the paper. The two terms are closely intertwined. Those who remain faithful will live happy lives, and

vice versa. There is more than one kind of love, but the love we concentrate on is the significance of a real relationship

between a man and a woman and its impact on the lovers’ lives. Women can seek peace of mind with a partner i.e., they

are trying to have their partner be their soul mate to have a happy life. The love that we plan to discuss in this study is

the love of a man to a woman, which has gone against the spiritual type of love- a physical love is seen that is very close

to superficial love. Heward-Mills (2013) claims in this regard that fidelity is important according to the word of God

Access this article online

Received on: December 7, 2020

Accepted on: December 20, 2021

Published on: June 30, 2021

DOI: 10.25079/ukhjss.v5n1y2021.pp42-49

E-ISSN: 2520-7806

4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Abstract

The love relationship between couples can be influenced by several factors influencing it to become a strong one in

one’s life or vice versa. Finding a real love is always considered to be the key point in the meeting of opposite sexes.

In order not to face psychological problems in the future, everyone’s concern is to seek for the right person. This is

true to some degree for many human beings. Real love can make one feel happy and pleased but it can sometimes

make one upset and hopeless. Also, superficial love can be the same because it can be the cause of pleasure for the

lover who only seeks a temporary relationship i.e., superficial love but similarly it can be the source of sadness for

the partner whose intention in such a relationship is a real love. This strenuous power manifests itself in the behavior

and sometimes in the appearance of the human beings. When one of the lovers stops his/her love relationship with

his/her lover by starting a new relationship with another person, due to their beauty, this will be called superficial

love. Such relations may culminate in deceiving and telling lies. This research will consider textual and psychological

approaches in the analysis of the selected poems of Forough Farrokhzad to demonstrate real love and superficial

love that may cause psychological and social impacts.

Keywords: Modern Persian Poetry, Shallow Love, True Love, Forough, Social issues, Sensuality.

Research Article

UKH Journal of Social Sciences | Volume 5 • Number 1 • 2021 43

which is why people need to adhere to revelations because of having several events of good people who are loyal and

evil ones who are disloyal. In the Bible there is much to derive from these accounts.

This study aims to explore the insightful perspective of Forough Farrokhzad's (1970) selected poems about real love

and superficial love. By demonstrating the real intentions of women in their relationships, this paper concentrates on

an interpretation of the poems on the textual and psychological levels which will hopefully be comprehensive and

effective. The psychological elements of the poem or the characters who are focused on in the poems should promote

the process of understanding the meaning of the poem and the poet's inner side or hero. The analysis of the

psychological aspects of the poem is, thus, essential to the perspective of the poet.

2. Forough Farrokhzad's, Iranian Poetry and the Concept of Love

Forough Farrokhzad was born in 1934, in Tehran. When she turned sixteen, she loved Parviz Shapoor and married him,

yet their marital life did not last long, and they split up. During their marriage, they had a son they named Kamyar. When

Forough was eighteen years old, she published her poetry collection entitled "The Captive" (Farrokhzad, 1970). Forough

demonstrates how she strives to create these poems like it is seen in her poem: “My wish is freedom of the Iranian ladies and

their value of rights with men” (Bassak & Bokharaei, 2016). In a patriarchal society in which women are 'suffocated in

innocent youth' and are made to fulfill men's cravings, Farrokhzad set out to express her ideas and what were considered

to be "heretical" points of view on the restrictions on and yearnings of Iranian ladies. She described herself as the 'flying

creature who for long/has been wanting to fly' “Let Us Believe”. Saeed Kamali Dehghan (2017) in an article “Former

lover of the poet known as Iran's Sylvia Plath breaks his silence” published on February 12, 2017 in The Guardian states

that “Farrokhzad, one of Iran’s most loved literary figures of the past century who was largely overlooked in the west,

was known for her candid writings challenging the patriarchal limits of Iranian society and has been compared to Sylvia

Plath”.

In her poems she starts to criticize men and the conventional marriage, which is like a 'chronic tranquilizer' that drags

our immaculate impulses into the chasm of "degeneration" and combines both names 'in the rotten pages of some

enroll' (Farrokhzad, 1970). She believed that the joining of inverse genders is the 'mystery devotion of our bodies/and

the glimmering of our exposure/like the sizes of fish in water' (Conquest of the Garden). What Farrokhzad embraced

was against the usual lifestyle and the traditional thoughts about women. Her passion for versatility and accomplishment

of conviction and her desire for a fulfilling life made her use of the words of Virginia Woolf, perform' the blessed

messenger in the house' and surrender the search for the fine, beguiling, unselfish and finished Lady. She gave up her

beloved partner and child and headed off from family life's small jail' (Farrokhzad, 1970). She recognized that she should

not be in charge of others without first finding a responsibility for her own freedom. She hated good social customs

and viewed them as destroyers of individual abilities. Mehdi Jami described her: “In every culture you have cultural

icons, like Shakespeare in Britain. Farrokhzad was like that for contemporary Iran, someone who formed the identity

of our contemporariness She wrote in a simple and intimate way. She was not fake, nor was her poetry She was the last

prophet of truth-telling that our country has seen” (Dehghan, 2017).

Love, as Bassak & Bokharaei (2016) claims, can be considered as a medium by falling back upon which man releases

himself from loneliness and anxiety. It goes about as a positive drive that defends the human being from becoming

more isolated towards faultlessness ran with his loved one. However, after the joining of the treasured, one of the lovers

in a friendship relationship expels his/her relationship with his/her lover because they either prefer a superficial love to

a strong love or on the contrary and strives to continue with his/her relation with another person, which is called selling

out in a social point of view. Poetry shows the inner side of people and, in its initial state, is a descriptive narrative from

the past to the modern times and is often known as upcoming expectations “bridge between past and future. Enduring

works of great individuals show well poets of this territory, at any time and place, have raised their mission flag. Forough

was a poetess that manifested female and mentalities of a woman as she looked at the world and followed as she wanted”

(Reza-Bakhtiary, 2015). She once described her poetry as “a vital need, a need on the scale of eating and sleeping,

something like breathing” (Pierpont, 2018).

Moreover, Reza-Bakhtiary (2015) also argues, if in the past “Ferdowsi, Saadi, Hafiz and Moulana and after that Shahriar,

Parvin, Sohrab and Forough” were observant accusers of their time, however, among them, Forough begins a journey

that starts “from and in herself, throughout two indiscrete periods, and resulted in her own inside. Since each building

has foundation and the root cause of this mast flag is a period of feminine and maternal sentiments it does not take so

long to reach a man with human characteristics”.

Many academic papers about Forough's poetry have been published. Most of the researchers concentrated more on

her poetry form: deconstruction and modernity. Moshref Azad Tehrani, for instance, wrote the book The Princess of

Poetry about this point. Others have investigated her story. The following are some important examples: Koopa,

Fatemeh, Kahandani, Mohammad Reza, and Gorji, Mostafa, 2010 tackled the concept of “Sin and Suffering in

Contemporary Female Poets’ Outlook”. Hosseinpour, Ali, Mousavi, Soghra Sadat, 2005, “Comparative Analysis of

UKH Journal of Social Sciences | Volume 5 • Number 1 • 2021 44

Forough’s and Sepehri’s Poetry from Intellectual and Conceptual Viewpoints”. We note that within these papers that

Forough is complaining about lack of sympathy and consideration and not finding her true lover. A number of studies

have been conducted in recent years by Iranian scholars living in Iran on the poems of Forough.

On the other hand, due to her unique and nonconformist way of writing poetry and addressing very delicate topics,

the new critics and authors are to some degree keen to do research into her life and her poetic style. These subjects were

hardly written about, not because they were not significant, but because of problems they caused for the writers who

risked touching upon these key issues of the Eastern culture in general and Iran especially and especially Iranian women,

culture, and psychology. The poems in general portray how the ruling patriarchal society treated them as objects to

soothe men's sexual desires and as depicted in some of the above-mentioned papers there was almost no love, affection,

and metaphysical aspects of love or it was not sufficient. Mohammad Reza Shafiei Kadkani, Iran’s famous poet,

described her that “She was very natural. She was the epitome of a real poet in her own time,” he said. “She had no

masks, that’s why today we still read her, and in future we will read her, too” (Dehghan, 2017).

Furthermore, her famous statement on the work of art, artist, gender and true artistic expressions, in a radio interview

recollects the preconceptions, judgements as well as perceptions about her, her perspective of love, the state of art,

modernity and gender:

If my poems, as you say, have an aspect of femininity, it is of course quite natural. After all, fortunately I am a woman.

But if you speak of artistic merits, I think gender cannot play a role. In fact, to even voice such a suggestion is unethical.

It is natural that a woman, because of her physical, emotional, and spiritual inclinations, may give certain issues greater

attention, issues that men may not normally address. I believe that if those who choose art to express their inner self,

feel they have to do so with their gender in mind, they would never progress in their art and that is not right. So, when

I write, if I keep thinking, oh I'm a woman and I must address feminine issues rather than human issues, then that is a

kind of stopping and self-destruction. Because what matters, is to cultivate and nourish one's own positive characteristics

until one reaches a level worth of being a human. What is important is the work produced by a human being and not

one labeled as a man or a woman. When a poem reaches a certain level of maturation, it separates itself from its creator

and connects to a world where it is valid based on its own merits (Wolpe, 2007).

What is more, in the afterword to Captive (1955), her first poetry collection, Farrokhzad wrote, “Perhaps because no

woman before me took steps toward breaking the shackles binding women’s hands and feet, and because I am the first

to do so, they have made such a controversy out of me” (Radjy, 2019).

3. Which Love?

It is suitable to refer to Allgaier's essay here on King Lear who writes: “In love man becomes unselﬁsh, sometimes to

the extent of laying down his life for his friends. One may look at love therefore as an abandonment of self to the object

of one's love, as a suspension of self-interest, as it were. But from this it follows that some sense of selfhood, some

consciousness of one's own worth and integrity, some pride perhaps, is a necessary requirement for love, for how can

one abandon or suspend something of which one is not in possession, or over which one has no control. Our reﬂection

has yielded a paradox, namely, that one must love oneself if one wishes to love one's neighbor. But surely logical pedants

need not shrink from accepting such a paradox as a reﬂection of reality when modern psychology, and physics, for that

matter, can do no better (Anderson, 2005).”

Real love might be one of most troublesome words to be interpreted and defined as people sees it according to his/her

familiarity. Many perceptions of love do exist; we may merely discuss love generally to clarify it. It may be said that Love

is the enthusiasm for flanking in the midst of a relation process in heading of people's perfection, which is not obliged

to specific conditions. The beloved and the lover both arrive at each other in a point and join one another and united

as a one person (Motlagh & Ali 1996). So, it does not imply that if one loves another, he will love everything she likes,

even though they are not of his interest. It may happen that a lover at the beginning of a lady's love will compromise

many things only for her sake, which will demonstrate one's commitment, and even this may decline from time to time,

and will eventually lead to disloyalty. Love and fidelity two interconnected parts of the lovers’ lives. If the relationship

does not end, their lives will be pleasant, and vice versa. That bond is meant to be powerful and unshakable in order to

have an enjoyable and fulfilling life. Loyalty can be considered a nourishment of the soul and its lack can contribute to

disloyalty.

One term in the world which can harm lovers more than anything else may be disloyalty. This will affect them

psychologically because for the sake of the beloved one, someone has neglected many important things of his/her own.

Disloyalty makes the partner feel melancholic and the emotional struggle can be much more painful than the body pains

as the latter could be recovered soon. Infidelity is a process for breaking off a love relationship between two people

which will be increased, gradually. This includes the feelings, and when the psychological excitements subside, the

physical impulses are arisen.

UKH Journal of Social Sciences | Volume 5 • Number 1 • 2021 45

Gidens and Berdsal (2001) in their work see love connections as a perfect relation; ‘an unadulterated connection in

view of shared certainty and autonomy and the capacity to build up relations with each different autonomous grown-

up that should make love and viable relations and get adequate fulfillment, keeping in mind the end goal to ensure their

relations’ (Gidens & Berdsal, 2001). From their perspectives, perfect relation should not be influenced by religion, family,

culture and tradition. In the time of Forough, life structure in Iran was that women and men did not like breaking even

with individuals and social influence. In that society, the ladies were defined by marriage, and their word-related status

was not regarded as free, though they had established their knowledge. Where tradition, practice, faith and the standing

of a family take on the basic cry of words.

That brought up new lady-like beliefs and hopes; love was not merely a desire, mental devastation, and a few

expressions of union with the beloved (Zare et al. 2017). Forough presents love in a simple, deep structure that has a

beautiful, unfiltered peak. In her verses the beloved does not try a physical satisfaction that his / her lover has been

looking for. Although, he / she is searching for a mental pain killer that only the memory of the lover will achieve. Her

affection reflects an opening to new cognitive horizons. The eye and eyebrow of the lover in her verse are not merely

on the edge of his human being, but rather it is the shadow of a deep affection that makes it excellent John Bradshaw

(2002) says: ‘The primary level of affection is of a lascivious nature and its last stage that is the absolute best one, which

is supposed a non-romantic love, is a virtuous love that has no relation with body and physical wishes and is idealistic

to the point that it alters to a myth’ (Koochi & Shahnaz 2000), and Forough wished to be involved in such a love.

Forough, in her verses, describes the noteworthiness these days of the impeccable and free bond of love transformed

into a concern. Forough's lifetime is the one in which few ladies voiced their affection, and the men trustworthily began

the first move. Forough attempts to change this aspect and encourages ladies to show their love. She seldom represents

a short time sexual link in her verses that extinguishes the periodic need. What she is addressing is expected from a lady

expressing love on the grounds that she will heal by and this is because she wants to be loved.

The positive state of mind about real love, the enthusiastic capacity to create about facing a harsh reality about the

beloved will set up a growing and declining cycle in relationships and shifting the emotional environment in love

connection, resulting in a frosty relationship that causes the process to end in search of another ideal lover. That is why

she honestly labels herself an unbeliever to express her emotions and feelings as she gives her spirit to him/the lover

with her body. It upsets her because she did not give her body to love, but she offered her body to the lust of man,

which is a transgression. From Forough's viewpoint, the word ‘treachery’ is prostitution. From this viewpoint, in order

to experience offensiveness we enter into her reality. It is very difficult for a poet to reveal her life story about the lover's

disloyalty, who doesn't return her love when she desires it. If she doesn't think she's been ashamed, she may not have

expressed her feelings so clearly. She lost her life by revealing her poems of love and all her stories of love.

Selected Poems of Forough Farrokhzad

“The Captive” (Farrokhzad, 1970) and the Concept of Love

In the part dedicated to Forough, in The Little Book of Feminist Saints by Julia Pierpont (2018), she is described as

“Marton Saint of Free Voices” as her title, and further added that “She was divorced and wrote about the joys of sex (a

sin all filled with pleasure) she was an Iranian women and wrote about the regression that came with that (Seek your

rights, Sister)” (n.a). Forough’ poem, "The Captive", is inclusive with all ideas on love, lust, and the lover’s intentions

and states of mind. The perspectives are pictured in a patriarchal society where a woman’s voice is not as expressive as

a man’s especially on such topics. In her poem, she states:

He is the scared away flame of sun

It is useless to run for reaching him

He is the blossomed bud of moonlight

On the meadow of the night-stricken of an eye

That summons him to sinful bed

The fragrance of the silent kisses,

Should be blended with enthusiastic moans

In the long hairs of that enchantress

He should pour love and lust insanely.

He should drink the wine cups of kisses

From those chanting lips

He should lay his head and rest drunkenly

On the breast of a beauty (Farrokhzad, 1970)

Forough Farrokhzad defines her lover as the sun rays that will leave; and he has no place in an inaccurate degree of

desolation; but from those who welcome him into their homes, he has a body for all. He goes there and drinks the kiss

wine wherever it is, and lays it on the lady's face. Despite this apparent unfaithfulness, Forough declares her inner anger

UKH Journal of Social Sciences | Volume 5 • Number 1 • 2021 46

and because she once heard the summons of admiration wrongfully. While Forough does not allow herself to criticize

the beloved, she expresses her feelings in the shadow of the best words. She calls him a moonlight that will sparkle on

everyone and touch their bodies warmly at evenings. She calls her beloved as the light of day and herself as the mud-

arrive on which nothing can be produced and prepared with the intention that she will have no need for daylight

radiation. She declares her heart an evil rough territory, since she has been a lover for quite some time.

The lover’s heart rains a storm of affection to all but her, and this is what hurts. In using a metaphorical language, the

poet clearly represents the image of the lover and the beloved. As an architect, she designs a modern building by picking

stones from the Eastern yards. Her building is so powerful that the modern writers may gather from the traces of her

castle, hoping to mimic her. It would appear she was so miserable when she wrote her poem, which is about real love

and superficial love, sentences were made out of her sighs and her falling tears.

In her poem this impression is unmistakably emphasized. She considers her love lover as the “moonlight” and he is a

shining person. This love is similar to an empathy “rain”. This love is “showered on the rocked terrain” of a heart of

the one who commits mistakes. She considered herself as “darkness but her lover as “sunshine of hope” of her “heart”

she says: “you the blissful light”. She likes her lover to appear as the sunshine (Farrokhzad, 1970).

The lover does not realize the importance of his beloved as something more than a physical attraction and this makes

him like a lunatic whose mere desire is her outer appearance. She might have not whined about similar connections if it

was a blending of the two types of love, which makes the beloved very intensely:

I stared at his both eyes and he said

We should harvest from love.

A shadow bent over a shadow' (Farrokhzad, 1970).

She was unconvinced by the lover's amount of love provided her. He sleeps with her very early in their relationship

and satisfies his thirst for her body as he asks her physical body to be playful so that her body can be delivered with

desire to keep in mind the ultimate goal of fulfilling his desire. It should be clear that this is not the love the lady has

requested. She needs love, the unadulterated love from which both soul and body are tipsy; the body should be regarded

as an exceedingly important purpose, though certainly her dearest is new to the excellent universe of love. He's like a

bystander who crosses his body through this area. The writer delineates this picture along these lines: “he demands the

wine of kiss from me/ what should I reply to my hopeful heart? Then she asserts that the boy only searches for “pleasure”

while she wants “pure love” from him, and this is hard to get it. To obtain this, she is ready to be a victim of such a

pure love. She goes on and says:

She demands a fiery body

To burn his anxiety

He says to me, O, embrace me warmly

And drunken me with your coquetry because I am insane

I say to him, O, the stranger, pass me,

I am stranger to you (Farrokhzad, 1970).

She is looking only for true love, not a form of love dependent on the physical attraction. While some people who

have not grasped the essence of Forough's zealous love remember it stranger than someone who goes through a path

and she surrenders to him. We may find that she is on the liberation journey, expressing passion and deceit, though she

appreciates love as previously described. When we reflect on this matter, we can see that she is moaning at the man who

is obsessed by his body's prurient longings; when the dearest left overflowing with that happiness, Forough calls him

back. She speaks about the subjects imaginable for him and wants someone to know the meaning of the unknown,

unheard-of words of love and passion. Finding such a loving person who cares about the beloved's inner dimension is

not easy. She has a yearning for ‘true love’, and for it she will sacrifice her ‘existence’. It is a love deeper than any ordinary

adoration, attraction or any other feelings, and a love that will become her personality. He is just searching for a body

along those lines, she asks him to remember her hot lips and her gorgeous body. As seen in these words: “woman”,

“chest”, “love”, “thirsty lips”, “passion”. “kissed”, and “eagerness” (Farrokhzad, 1970).

When the beloved discovers that everything she did was for her lover's sake, and he does not consider it important or

significant, she secretly starts to publicize it. It may be expressed purely through certain words or expressions. The word

"insane" shows how unhappy she is about her relationship with someone who hasn't the same emotion as her. In her

poem; "Farewell," she makes a statement which is hard for ladies. She admits that she has started to look all starry eyes

at once and hasn't recalled that the men in her room can't be a lover and appreciate the adoration that streams in the

heart of a lady’s lover. They found out that they have the privilege to start glimpsing at the eyes similar to stars. The lady

was obliged to leave her lover although she was quite sad which might have been due to the shame that the change in

the loyalty of the lover about her has brought about. He neglects her. The beginning of love relation for many might be

pleasing and attractive in such a way that it builds a magical world from the perspective of the readers but a real world

UKH Journal of Social Sciences | Volume 5 • Number 1 • 2021 47

from the perspective of the poor girl in backwarded countries. Yet such a pleasing relation may result in agony, sadness

and pessimism because of the disloyalty and selfishness of the lover towards the beloved. The lady has confessed that

she is very regretful in her relation with him, when she says, 'I take my frenzied and mad heart/ To wash it out of sin in

that far place/ To wash it out of the stain of love' (Farrokhzad, 1970).

Her pure heart, she believed, is being stained because of disloyalty and the lies told by the lover in the promises which

were not fulfilled. He has obviously been attracted by the exterior beauty of the lady but since there is no guarantee, or

no true love that stems from the bottom of the heart such a love does not please her. Above all, she prefers a type of

love which is not purely earthly or physical. Her sadness reaches to the point that she wishes to pay for her wrong action

which is the love relation or love making with the disloyal and a liar who is her lover. This is quite obvious in

Farrokhzad’s poem when she uses words such as “shameful, too shameful”. She compares her life to a cage or a prison

which is quite “tight” for the “frenzied lovers”. She goes on to say that never think that one can see “sin” in her poem

and asks for a “cup of shame and sin” as this will lead her to:

“Paradise, nymph, and water from the fountain in paradise all be of yours

Reside me in the deepest point of hell” (Farrokhzad, 1970).

Furthermore, there is a lover who is quite severe and tough with her beloved as seen in Farrokhzad’s poem “Bored”,

and considers her as a simple and naïve lady and/or more than that he looks at her as a prostitute. This is all due to the

Persian culture because if the lady shows her true love for a boy she will be looked at as stupid or naïve lady. She decides

not to sacrifice herself and her pride of a free girl to the lover any longer. She believes that by ignoring the lover who is

a disloyal one, she might be able to turn a magical world real as it is seen in her poem:

I no longer sacrifice my pride to his love foolishly

Maybe, if I ignore him

I will find my lost happiness and mirth

The one who made me happy and drunkard

One who gave me hope and enjoyment

Wherever he spoke in a gathering,

He said unhesitatingly

“She was a vulgar simpleton (Farrokhzad, 1970).

The lady demonstrated the real status of the boy while being with her and while being with the other people blaming

her and criticizing her. This is what made her feel sad and wants to challenge all the things that seem peculiar to her in

her own culture just because of being a girl. She then, starts to blame herself for choosing such a type of life with a

disloyal lover. In an article “Overlooked No More: Forough Farrokhzad, Iranian Poet Who Broke Barriers of Sex and

Society” published in New York Times by Amir-Hussein Radjy in January 30 2019, Radjy states that “Throughout her

life she struggled with how her gender affected the reception of her work in a culture where women were often confined

to traditional roles, but where there are few higher callings than the life of a poet.” In the following part she also believes

that she has committed something wrong this is why she has to pay for it. As one can see:

Undoubtedly, no one did not annoy herself as did I

I myself caused to suffer this agony.

No way is for the one who commits this sin

My foot is in chain and I moan that

I have no familiarity with the chain loop (Farrokhzad, 1970)

The poet becomes quite sad, and she is about to lose her temper as she knows what he has been doing for that long

time. Yet, she has some hope, but not to human beings or earthly powers, as she looks at them as disloyal and oppressors

of women. Her hope is in God, obviously, it is because she has done all her mistakes in secret but now her inner world

punishes her to hide it anymore. This is why she is asking God for help, and this is a kind of repentance from her sins.

She is so beautifully coining her ideas that no other female Persian poets could use her style. She intends to leave this

world and fly to the sky as the sky is very pure and this is the reason angles are there. She wants to be an angel and to

escape from such a world that only becomes a source of unhappiness and blame for her. It is clear in her poem when

she in the form of monologue tells God that the only one who knows about what is “the original sin” is He. Therefore,

she demands God to give her “the original pureness”. She is in a condition that even she cannot express her feeling of

self-hatred to God because of being fatigue. It is clear that she wants to escape her real life and she keeps asking God

and says:

“Take out of my brilliant eyes

The enthusiasm to run towards others” (Farrokhzad, 1970).

The poet says that the wish of the woman is to have been given another body to escape from the eyes of the people

who blame her continuously in her life. What she is asking for in the poems is just like asking God to turn her from a

UKH Journal of Social Sciences | Volume 5 • Number 1 • 2021 48

human being into an “angel” in the paradise (Farrokhzad, 1970). But it is very hard to have her wishes fulfilled as angels

always surrender to God and do not do any physical things and they are not visible as human beings.

Sometimes some people make mistakes and commit sins out of their ignorance, or they may be deceived by some

people. These people must not be blamed harshly especially when they realize that they commit sins or mistakes, they

immediately regret and ask God for forgiveness. These people could be forgiven. She is one of these people and

therefore, it is most probable to be exempted from her sins by God that she considers as sins according to her own

culture. The way people looked at her behavior negatively in her society, made her no longer wish to live as a human

being but rather to live like an angel.

She has never spent so much time with the boy she loved as it is clear in the below lines of her poem. Her love was

just like a one-sided love, or perhaps she was deeply in love with the boy keeping the spiritual or metaphysical type of

love in mind as it cannot be impure or during absence such a love becomes stronger not weak. She is just like being

prisoned and cannot get the things she needs because the boy neglects her or does not know such a strong love from

her, which is the real love. Unfortunately, this made her say that only death makes her reach the one she loves in her

special manner. Her world similar to a caged bird, was merely a jail for her for a long time this is why even if now she

is being released, she will not enjoy it because she has become old. Also, she still wants to be released and join the

person, who puts her into such a prison for that long time, and to laugh at her own life and live by his side. She becomes

hopeless as she does not believe that she will be able to leave such a jail, which is her life. She lady says that she wants

to hold her lover, but she cannot just to satisfy her deep lover for him. Moreover, the poet says that the lady is not as

free as the boy in the sky but she is rather like a “bird” in a “cage” and this cage is compared to a jail for the lady.

Being in “cold dark bars” and seeing the lover’s “eyes full of wonderment and rue”, she thinks of approaching him

and immediately flying towards him. She also states:

I think about one moment of neglect

When from this stiffing sullen jail I’d glide,

Laugh in the face of him who jailed me, leaving

This life to seek a new one at your side.

I think such thoughts, but know

I’ll never be able to flee this cage before I die. (Farrokhzad, 1970)

Her real love for the boy is in such a way that makes her quite lazy to escape from the cage or the prison even though

the door is open. This is all due to her lover from him and she becomes very weak to fly. She continues to express

herself:

Across the bars I see each sunlit morning

My child’s eyes smile at mine in gentle glee,

And when I lift my voice in joyous song

His lips come offering up a kiss to me. (Farrokhzad, 1970)

Her lover ruined her own personal life. It made her not to feel well, psychologically. Using such words: “I think,

thoughts, know I'll never be Able, flee this cage, I die”, tells readers that she is deeply being influenced by her life with

such a superficial love, which leads to mental problems and physical problems, too. Devoting much time of thinking

about psychological problems, makes Farroukh feel tired and incapable of doing anything. It is clear in “I've not enough

strength left in me to fly” (Farrokhzad, 1970). The lady is powerless and weak to leave the jail. Being disappointed with

all the earthly powers the poet starts to devote her time to repent from sins and not to kiss but rather leave and escape

from the earth to the sky and join the angles as she intended to escape from man because her lover was not loyal with

her.

4. Conclusion

Throughout Farroughzad’s poems it becomes obvious that real love which is to some degree absent in modern life

could make life meaningful due to its impact on the true lover’s relationships. On the other hand, superficial love could

be meaningless and leaves lovers with psychological problems and sadness because of the lover’s physical attraction to

each other, merely. The poet points out in several places in her poems that she is quite regretful and sad about her

relationship with the lover who was not loyal to her. These words “insane”, “mad”, “stain”, “shame” “sinner”, “sacrifice”

“stranger” “annoy”, “moan”, “cage” “jail” and “sin” prove this. Not only she is not happy about her relationship with

her lover who only wanted his own pleasure but also, he made her feel unwell and face psychological problems which

resulted in social issues, as well. Farrough may have seen her sex relation with her lover as a sin of adultery because of

disloyalty of the partner in staying with her and proving support and love to her.

The female characters that she used in her poems could possibly represent the poet herself. Living in such a society like

the one of the poets, one has to abide by all the norms and traditions of the society. If one deviates from one single

norm of the society, she/he will be criticized harshly. Farroughzad depicted the image of the people in her society who

UKH Journal of Social Sciences | Volume 5 • Number 1 • 2021 49

will look down upon women with disgrace just because of daring to express their disagreement in some rare cases

because people will consider it as a deviation from their tradition. This will certainly have a negative influence on the

female characters and ultimately because they cannot find a way to express their hidden feelings, they will face

psychological problems which are difficult for them to solve.

The poet in “The Captive” (Farrokhzad, 1970) intends to advice girls to know the person well before having deep

relations with them. If they make haphazard relations with any lover, they will be the one who will regret and the whole

society will laugh at and finally she will become ill both mentally and physically. Thus, shallow relations are rejected

because it does not make sense to have a temporary relation with someone whom a lady loves forever.

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