Reflection of Women's Image in Shamloo's Poems

Women humiliation and suppression of their rights is a ponderable historical issue. Our literary and historical texts have expressed the subject of the man´s superiority over the woman and the patriarchal view with complete explicitness. On the basis of the existing resources, particularly our ancient literary works, it could be noticed that this attitude gradually changed into a cultural belief. As a result, the women gave way to this widespread belief and then started to ignore the equality of their rights with the men, accepting whatever the patriarchal society destined for them. After centuries, time came for those who felt they had to stand against this attitude; one that had integrated itself into the whole culture of the society. They raised a new different voice. The earliest voices of objection against suppressing women´s rights echoed in social history about one century and half ago and gradually it changed into one of the major themes in contemporary literature. During an era which came to be known as the modernity, respecting the women srights gradually paved its way into the laws. Aside from various social and civil institutes which began to recognize and defend the long-neglected rights of women, literature played a very prominent role in this new direction. Ahmad Shamloo is one of the literary figures whose works have best reflected this new direction. The present study seeks to examine the notion of the woman in Shamloo´s poetry from the following five perspectives: 1) The woman as the conventional beloved, 2) The ethereal woman, 3) The lady of the poet smind, 4) The woman as the true beloved and 5) The woman as a mother.