Wintering in the Beginning of Cold Season: Ecofeminist Deconstruction of Nature in West and East in Farrokhzad’s “Let us Believe in the Oncoming of Cold Season”

Abstract

Ecofeminists seek the reversal of the oppressing binary oppositions of nature/culture, woman/man as to reach a balanced ecosystem in which women are not considered inferior since they are associated with nature .Therefore, ecofeminism could be regarded as a suitable framework for the discussion of the literary works and their treatment of woman/nature theme. The present article would be an attempt to demonstrate the way  Farrokhzad’s “Let us Believe in the Oncoming of Cold Season” and Plath’s “Wintering”, concern such association and deconstruct the binary oppositions in a way that similarly both women personas are ultimately able to take the role of female artist. Both women transgress the winter and hope for the spring to come, while the winter they pass through differs since it originates from different social backgrounds. As such, new historicism would be applied to discover this difference, since the study is a comparative one and yields to the investigation of different societies in which the poems were composed. Farrokhzad lives in an era on the verge of modernism, that’s why she is still preoccupied with the traditions of the past, though she would finally depict the woman persona as having stepped beyond these limitations. Plath’s concerns, on the other hand, rise from a mind entangled with the impacts of modernity and the hollow men. Both are able to pass the winter, though, as female creators who await the reproductive spring blossoms to flourish.