The Surveillance-Punitive Function of Prison in the Prison Poems of Ahmad Shamlou: A Discoursal and Sociological Analysis

The prison poems of Ahmad Shamlou are significantly different from the classical form of prison literature in terms of structure, function, content, and discourse. In the present research, we have tried to study Ahmad Shamlou’s prison poems with an integrated approach using discoursal and semiotic tools. In order to interpret the function of prison as a punitive tool, we have taken Foucault’s views and to explain the relationship between power and disciplinary space and prison punishment, the issue of authority and domination has been briefly discussed based on the ideas of some sociologists and philosophers such as Max Weber and Thomas Hobbes. Lefebvre’s views on space have been used in the interpretation of prison environment. The results indicate that unlike the classical prison poets, Shamlou first discredits the punitive and disciplinary function of the prison by not admitting the charge and considering the punishment illegitimate. Second, the prison environment in Shamlou’s prison poems is a discoursal space in which the poet has tried to use the dialectical capacity of the space by successively escaping to the outside world, emptying the prison of its physical and defined identity as an enclosed space, and portraying it as a required developmental experience in the path to achieve the goal.