This dissertation aims to study the emergence of modern literature in Iran alongside modernism in the international context by focusing on a particular case study, Taqī Rafʿat’s oeuvre. A historical material and theoretical background is provided to support such reading. Nevertheless, this comparative reading is done via particular images. The first image is an image of the Titanic and disastrous modernity. One can see the links of the disastrous modernity all over the globe. Modernity reshaped labour and economy, symbolised in the image of the peasant. The peasant’s image depicts this change in different literatures, particularly the Iranian one. The concept of oblivion in relation to history is presented in the image of a flying flare. Finally, the concept of anxiety is scrutinized to re-read Rafʿat’s oeuvre from that point of view.