The feminist struggle for identiry in the poetry of forugh Farrokhzad (Iran) and Fahmida Riaz (Pakistan)

Abstract

Identity is one of the fundamental concerns of human beings. What identity is and how it is formed are the key questions of this debate. An important aspect of this debate is gender that addresses core issue of the formation and projection of identity. Gender equality demands the review of masculine perceptions of women’s identity and the feminist writers and activists across the world try to respond these queries and engage in the process of rectification of the falsely believed ‘truths’. The process of identity formation requires certain input factors starting from the urge to know the truth. The truth seekers poets tend to do this job. The proposed study intends to explore the struggle of the two poets, Fahmida Riaz from Pakistan and Forugh Farrokhzad from Iran. Both these poets have dared to review the perceived standards and analyse them in the light of contemporary discoveries and truths. The study contends that both the feminist poets stress on the awareness of women to their ‘self’ and skills. They believe that women must transgress from the prescribed roles assigned by the society. This can lead to the actualization of women’s potential in social spheres of life. The main objectives of this research study are to explore the feminist elements in their works, analyze the perspective of these writers in terms of their cultural context, and relate the strength of these writers in terms of struggle for the feminism. It addresses the questions: How can it be determined that the struggle of Forugh Farrokhzad and Fahmida Riaz presented in their poetry is actually a struggle for the feminist identity? What are the feminist elements in the works of these female writers? How has feminism being defined in the cultural context of Iranian and Pakistani poets? The researcher relies only on the translated works of the afore-mentioned poetesses. The qualitative method of study is proposed for this purpose.