Women Identity and Self-Assertion: A Study of Two Contemporary Retellings of Mahabharata

Abstract

Mythology has been very foundation of many cultures and civilizations. The western world has inherited the base from the classical mythology of Greek and Roman civilization but for India this is all about the rich heritage of its own mythology which is culturally and religiously much more vibrant. In this project, the retellings, refolding and revisiting of mythology has been greatly emphasized which shows the especially perspective of women. It is also describing the changing role of women in our society. The two major epics that hugely influenced the Indian culture are the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, for this paper I found the Mahabharata interesting and convincing. This study will analyse how the female perception differs from the male discourse especially by contrasting the myths from the Mahabharata. Indian feminist begun to step out from the shadow and rewrote mythology, which was written by Man. This was necessary because male discourse elides women. Men written myths have the functions to infantilize women, to irradiate the dysfunction women have to write for themselves in discourse. From these retelling of mythology I have taken two of the novels for my study i.e. “The Palace of Illusions” by Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni and “Karna’s wife: the Outcast Queen” by Kavita Kane. The objective of the study is to contemporizing the past and bringing mythical era to the present. The second objective is to blurring the line between the past and mythology for this 21st century society.