Retelling Myths, Reconstructing Narratives: Exploring ‘Desire’ in Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions and The Forest of Enchantments

Abstract

Eve Tuck asks for “desire-centric” frameworks in place of the traditional “damage-centric” studies. Forwarding her concept to feminist studies in India, especially in fiction writings, we see more desire-based approach in recent appropriations of Indian mythology. Feminist scholarship often follows “damage-centric” frameworks while discussing positions of women in a phallocentric world, which cannot do justice to women’s agency. Mere damage-centric writings create a stereotypical picture of feminism, while a desire-based approach can become more useful to women’s cause. This paper investigates desire-based approaches in Divakaruni’s appropriation of Draupadi and Sita in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, whose religious and cultural influence is immense in India despite having an undisputed centrality of men in its narratives. Divakaruni challenges these narratives and attempts retellings. This study explores desire-centrism in Divakaruni’s fictions, which, it opines, is a necessary adjustment of approach for recent feminist scholarship in India in its quest for philosophical decolonization.