A romance, a tragedy, a commentary upon political and religious corruption, a condemnation of the oppression of women by patriarchal society, and a meditation upon spiritual love. "The Broken Wings" has the savour of the autobiographical, though how much is history and how much romanticised I'm unsure. The brief narrative is multilayered, metaphorical and allusive in the way of most of Gibran's writing, here laid over a more earthbound framework.