The Symbol of “Niloufar-e Kabood” in “The Blind Owl” by Sadegh Hedayat

This article examines the symbolic meaning of the image of a flower, designated by the phrase “niloufar-e kabood”, in the novel “The Blind Owl” by the Iranian modernist writer Sadegh Hedayat. Previously, researchers saw in the image of “niloufar- e kabood” predominantly universal meanings, but in this study, the emphasis is placed on its national roots associated with ancient Iranian beliefs and Iranian art, as well as elements of a number of other cultures that influenced Hedayat. In the Persian language, the lexeme “niloufar” is polysemic and can mean both lotus and morning glory, which makes the image used by Hedayat ambiguous and multi-layered, like the novel itself, created in the traditions of modernist poetics. By using the adjective “kabood” (purple / light blue / blue) instead of the traditional Farsi “abi” (light blue / blue) in combination with “niloufar,” Hedayat adds new semantic overtones, associated with ancient Iranian Khatai patterns, Zoroastrianism, and more ancient Iranian cults, as well as ancient Indian and ancient Egyptian culture. The results of the analysis showed that the image of “niloufar-e kabood” is ambivalent, combining high and low, beautiful and ugly, bliss and pain, vitality and mortal threat, death and immortality, the majestic past of Iran before the Arab conquest, and the inglorious present of Persia at the beginning of the 20th century. Its semantic domain includes ancient Iranian ornaments, the charm of antiquity, the pain of losing touch with it, images of a bruise, wound, mutilation, stiffness, suffocation, hopelessness, lifelessness, and fatality.