Estranged Selves: Gendered Alienation in Forough Farrokhzad’s “Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season” and T.S. Eliot’s “Portrait of a Lady

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Master’s student of English Language and Literature at Yazd University

2 Assistant Professor of English Literature in the Department of English Language-Yazd University

10.22034/jsllt.2025.23330.1082

Abstract

This study explores the representation of alienation in Forough Farrokhzad’s “Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season” and T.S. Eliot’s "The Portrait of a Lady", with a focus on upper-middle-class women within modernist Persian and Anglo-American contexts. Through comparative analysis, close reading, thematic exploration, and contextual interpretation, the study explores how female despair is shaped by loneliness, identity loss, and patriarchal constraints. The findings of the research highlight the universal and yet distinctly gendered effect of modernity on women. The cross-cultural perspective of the study investigates the distinct ways in which Farrokhzad and Eliot portray female despair with regard to their cultural contexts. Through challenging the societal constraints of modern Iran and portraying post-war European cultural conventions, these authors offer a detailed understanding of how gender, culture, and patriarchy work together in order to shape the alienating effects of modernity. Employing intersectional feminism and, to a lesser extent, radical feminism, this study bridges Persian and Anglo-American poetic traditions and enriches feminist literary criticism. Thus, it provides new insights into the intersection of gender and alienating modernism, emphasizing the universal yet varied manifestations of female despair in modernist literature.

Keywords

Journal of Studies in Language Learning and Teaching
Volume 2, Issue 1
February 2025

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History

  • Receive Date: 30 June 2025
  • Revise Date: 28 October 2025
  • Accept Date: 28 November 2025

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