Scary Tehran by Moshfegh Kashani is considered as a pioneering social novel in Iran.In this article, we have tried to examine this novel from the social science perspective in order to explain its semiotics and answer the question of what signs this novel implies and whether the symptoms are ideological. To this end, following some preliminary introduction of the science of semiotics, we have analyzed the manifestation of signs in this literary work. Our findings indicate that the author has efficiently benefited from using signs in order to portray social problems such as social class differences, bipolar social system, and injustice. Further, the author  highlights the ideological concept of the symptoms and signs and how they represent the contrasts between the rich and the poor of late Qajar Tehran.

Literary texts are the product of individual unconscious psyche and collective consciousness. In Iranian mythology, Fereydoun and Zahhak are symbols of good and evil. This research is an attempt to demonstrate aspects of growth and decay according to Erich Fromm’s theories. It aims at finding aspects of growth (love of life, love of humanity, freedom from the archetypal Mother) and contrasting them with the manifestations of decay (love of death, narcissism, return to mother’s womb) in respectively the characters of Fereydoun and Zahhak in Shahnameh.