A Reading of “Smoke Just Has Different Names” by Garoos Abdolmalekian on the Basis ofNew Criticism Theory

In this paper, the poem “Smoke just has different names” by GaroosAbdolmalekian is analyzed on the basis of New Criticism. In order to achieve an accurate reading of the text, New Criticism studies the relationship between the textual components and the themeof works. The criterion of evaluation in this approach is a concept called “Organic Unity” which means the functioning of all components beside each other in order to form an unresolvable whole whose four elements are: content tension, paradox, irony and ambiguity.In this approach, lexical and ultra-lexical meanings of words, symbols, images, figures of speech, punctuation marks and the poem's written formhave been studied. The result is a discovery of an organic unity between the poem's imagery components, and alsobetween the whole of the poem that has been formed upon the poem's content tension, that is, the contrast of mortality versus immortality. This content tension is reinforced by the themes “transitivity” and “identity metamorphosis” and leads to the domination of mortality over immortality. So the poem “Smoke just has different names” is a harmonious whole, madefrom components which have created a literary text through harmonious and contrastive relationships