Rewriting Gendered Narratives: A Comparative Reading of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s the Palace of Illusions and Kavitha Kane’s Karna’s Wife: The Outcast’s Queen

Prathyaksh Janardhanan

2023

Abstract

Gender has always sparked debatable narratives that may not be binary in nature in sociological and academic discourse as a conceptual and epistemological construct. It is evidence of the necessity to continue these talks and arguments that the category continues to ignite the ashes of resistance. Due to their genre-based palimpsest narratives, Indian epics, which serve as the storehouse of stories, silence important voices from the macro narratives of the text. Additionally, epics have primarily highlighted the achievements of men. The only role for women in the epics is that of the muse, who provides the hero with courage and inspiration. In this sense, the Draupadi character is anomalous. Furthermore, the discussion of voices of self articulation is sparked by the title of Kavitha Kane’s novel Karna’s Wife: The Outcast’s Queen. The tales told by the two ladies in the Mahabharata—whose husbands were among the most celebrated yet star-crossed warriors of their era—illustrate how their narratives rework their histories and so disrupt the epic’s overarching macronarratives. In order to demonstrate how alternative narratives as depicted in these novels aid in articulating a narrative voice for the gendered subject, the paper attempts rewritings and works on two strong female characters from the epic. Through the use of these characters, the paper argues how the voice becomes the agency to generate resistance against macro epistemic narratives produced by the larger framework of a patriarchal ecosystem.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Janardhanan P. (2023). Rewriting Gendered Narratives: A Comparative Reading of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s the Palace of Illusions and Kavitha Kane’s Karna’s Wife: The Outcast’s Queen. In Proceedings of the 1st Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies - Volume 1: PAMIR; ISBN 978-989-758-687-3, SciTePress, pages 824-828. DOI: 10.5220/0012512500003792

in Bibtex Style

@conference{pamir23,
author={Prathyaksh Janardhanan},
title={Rewriting Gendered Narratives: A Comparative Reading of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s the Palace of Illusions and Kavitha Kane’s Karna’s Wife: The Outcast’s Queen},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 1st Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies - Volume 1: PAMIR},
year={2023},
pages={824-828},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0012512500003792},
isbn={978-989-758-687-3},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 1st Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies - Volume 1: PAMIR
TI - Rewriting Gendered Narratives: A Comparative Reading of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s the Palace of Illusions and Kavitha Kane’s Karna’s Wife: The Outcast’s Queen
SN - 978-989-758-687-3
AU - Janardhanan P.
PY - 2023
SP - 824
EP - 828
DO - 10.5220/0012512500003792
PB - SciTePress