This report summarizes my Ph.D. Research progress from Jan 2015-June 2015. The focus of the study in this chapter is on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel, The Palace of Illusion. It studies and analyzes the Mahabharata from a woman’s perspective, i.e. on how Draupadi would have felt and narrated the epic story. The authoress fictionalized history and mythicized it from a new perspective. The Palace of Illusions is a narration of Mahabharata in first person as the protagonist seeing all the events during her life time from her view point. The study explores the portrayal of the myths created by the writer, their divergence from the original text and their point of similarities. The elements of mythopoeia, fantasy, storytelling, fiction and myth making are identified with the struggle of women to regain her lost prestige. Most of the Indian literature is based on patriarchal mythology. Significant theoretical and critical work has been prepared on male-centered myths.
Divakurni has crafted a thoroughly feminine portrayal which is contemporary whilst it’s timeless. It constructs and
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The description of Dhritrastra in Palace of Illusion is through Panchaali’s eyes. As far as Dhritrastra is concerned as she is forever trying to guess whether she is being blessed or cursed by him. Therefore, Panchaali, in the novel is depicted as a person, placed in a difficult predicament by the action of Dhritrastra. The diverging point depicted by Divakurni in the novel is that the story is told by a Dhai Ma who narrates the tale to Panchaali, of the birth of Pandavas and Kauravas. She explains the aim of Dhritarashtra’s life was to have a son who would become an heir to the throne after him. Thus one observes the mythopoeic elements in the
Literature is the key to our world or language. Many writers have emerged from this subject such as Homer who wrote The Odyssey and Euripidies who wrote about the evil Medea. Also mentioned in this paper are the Thousand and One Arabian Nights which is a collection of folktales and stories that are compiled into one. Each of these works of literature has a woman character that has many similarities in solving their problems. In The Odyssey the woman character that will be in comparison is Penelope which is Odysseus’s wife. In the story of Medea, Medea is of course the character we will be discussing and Shaharazad is the woman character from the Thousand and One Arabian Nights that will also be in comparison. Each of these women find themselves in a particularly “sticky situation.” However, Penelope, Medea, and Shahrazad are three strong women whose perseverance and cleverness help them to attain their goals.
In December 2010 Shirin Neshat gave a TedTalk asking its audience to consider how they perceive Iran. As an artist in self-imposed exile from Iran, Neshat uses the TedTalk, “Art In Exile,” to talk to a western audience about the Iranian peoples’ struggle to shake off the negative preconceptions many have in the west. Neshat uses her artwork to explore this issue and aims to highlight the role of Iranian artists, how western views on Iran are changing, and the strength and importance of Iranian women in their country’s fight for freedom.
In a world filled with false politicians, posed media pictures online, and media magazines filled with fake pictures taken out of context, it is easy to believe that the world has become artificial and fake. Chris Hedges’ Empire of Illusion presents an argument that fills the lines dictated by today's society by saying that the most essential skill for most people in political theatre or consumer cultures is in fact artificial. I believe this statement to be true as the need for honest and sincere politicians and advertisers have become irrelevant as the ability to become popular and succeed in a goal through artificial items has becomes more popular through the uses of posed media and the ability to put on the show of a different person.
This essay explores the role of women in Homer's Odyssey, James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) and Derrick Walcott's Omeros (1990), epics written in very different historical periods. Common to all three epics are women as the transforming figure in a man's life, both in the capacity of a harlot and as wife.
In conclusion, the development of the folktales leads to the obtaining of ideas about gender. In many ways our society supports the idea that women seem underestimated as well as physically and mentally weak in comparison with the men who is portrayed as intelligent and superior. This can be shown in many ways in the different versions of this folktale through the concepts of symbolic characters, plot and narrative perspective.
Enderwitz, Susanne. “Shahrazad Is One Of Us: Practical Narrative, Theoretical Discussion, And Feminist Discourse.” Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies 18.2 (2004): 187-200. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
In considering the relationship between the meanings of myths and their representation of women, we learned that the major role in shaping the narratives was played by men.
As we compare the traditional women versus modern women, we perceive differences and similarities. Prachi fights for a belief system that controls her meanwhile Ruhi struggles with self-identity and depends on the beauty pageant to empower her as an Indian woman. Prachi defends Hinduism but at the same time, is Hinduism that restrains her from becoming “modern.” Ruhi on the other hand considers herself a very modern girl and she values freedom therefor the pageant is a road to liberation for her. Both girls struggle in distinct ways but their goal is similar, to shape their countries future.
...f Bath, we see an individual who is willing to express that idea. Her courage to defy the traditional concepts as set by her peers does not intimidate her, and she boldly stands up for what she believes in, popular or not. Another strong feminist aspect to her is that she feels no need to be justified or have approval for her decisions and lifestyle. Just because she is a woman does not limit her choices in her life, and neither her gender nor her decisions make her inferior.
Women were often subjects of intense focus in ancient literary works. In Sarah Pomeroy’s introduction of her text Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, she writes, “Women pervade nearly every genre of classical literature, yet often the bias of the author distorts the information” (x). It is evident in literature that the social roles of women were more restricted than the roles of men. And since the majority of early literature was written by men, misogyny tends to taint much of it. The female characters are usually given negative traits of deception, temptation, selfishness, and seduction. Women were controlled, contained, and exploited. In early literature, women are seen as objects of possession, forces deadly to men, cunning, passive, shameful, and often less honorable than men. Literature reflects the societal beliefs and attitudes of an era and the consistency of these beliefs and attitudes toward women and the roles women play has endured through the centuries in literature. Women begin at a disadvantage according to these societal definitions. In a world run by competing men, women were viewed as property—prizes of contests, booty of battle and the more power men had over these possessions the more prestigious the man. When reading ancient literature one finds that women are often not only prizes, but they were responsible for luring or seducing men into damnation by using their feminine traits.
The husband is perplexed in the short story “The Disappearance” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, as he does not see how his past actions would cause his wife to be unhappy in her life with him (there are no names associated to the characters in this story). The husband is the protagonist of the story. The story is not clear on the reasons for the wife leaving not only the husband, but also her son. The reason for this is the author utilizes a third-person narration that focus on the protagonist husbands prospective. However, as the story continues the writing exposes that the wife left the protagonist husband for the reasons that he reveals of being boring, thoughtless, demanding, and all about himself, as the author establishes with the protagonist-focused, third-person narrative.
Sharma, Pankaj. "Depiction Of Woman As Human: A Reading Of Excesses Of Feminist Readings Of Shakespeare's King Lear." Language In India 13.12 (2013): 433-446. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
Yukio Mishima’s Temple of the Golden Pavilion, set in postwar Japan, gives way to a reflection of the postwar experience both the representation of military aggression and in use of symbolism of beauty, loss, and destruction. A story about Mizoguchi, a young, stuttering acolyte’s obsession with beauty lends itself to the conflagration of the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, based loosely on a true story about the Kinkaku-ji.
In contemporary society, feminism is emerging as a theory of social construct. In literature it is often challenging to discover female characters that go beyond the limits of marginalized female stereotypes and roles as a means to transgress beyond societal norms. Women are characterized as subordinate objects, amid the dominant patriarchal nature entrenched amid the epic. In The Ramayana, women are portrayed as powerless objects that succumb to the manipulation of men as the text portrays a false empowerment of women, which ultimately succumb to common archetypes accustomed to women in literature; implementing a hierarchy of gender that institutionalizes male dominance amid female inferiority. The women of The Ramayana struggle to oppose the systemic patriarchy and pursue a pathway towards attaining dynamic elements of power, that enable their ability to embody autonomous authority. In Valmiki’s The Ramayana, while women appear to be empowered, ultimately they are feeble instruments utilized to fulfill the desires of men.
The Palace of Illusions by Kim Addonizio explores the expanding paradoxes and conflicts innate in human experience through a series of short stories. Each story illustrating different characters; from ignorant parents to concepts of love or the maddening struggle of alienation and self-hatred, the characters in The Palace of Illusions all must contend with these challenges. As they tread the burdened line between the real and the imaginary, often in a world not of their making, they handle their strange misgivings as humanely or inhumanely as possible. Addonizio draws on many literary devices to bring to life a variety of settings, all connected through the suggestion that things in the known world are not what they seem through the use of