The Concept of Platonic Love in Khalil Gibran’s the Broken Wings

Abstract

The Broken Wings is a poetic novella by the Lebanese-American writer Khalil Gibran. KhalilGibran is arguably one of the finest writers of the Arabic world, “In his writing, he raged against the oppression of women and the tyranny of the Church and called for freedom from Ottomanrule.” (Amirani ,Shoku , and Stephanie Hegarty. “Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet: Why is it so loved?” BBCWorld Service, 12 May 2012.)The Broken Wings is a tale of love, thwarted by the corrupt power. Selma Karemy thefemale protagonist of the novel, is forced into a marriage with the nephew of anefarious bishop. Her fate is sealed with the misery of a loveless marriage yet her secret meetings withher poet-lover makes her wipe her tears and share her smiles yet the story ends tragically with herdeath in childbirth: “it seems as if the child had come to rescue his mother from her pitiless husband”(Gibran 74). The Broken Wingsis an autobiographical novella and is considered to be the best book written by Gibran (Schuster, Shlomit C. The Philosopher's Autobiography: A Qualitative Study). This paper will try to analogize the love of Salema Karamy and the young Visionary with Plato’s concept of love in The Symposium.