the palace of illusions by chitra banerjee

To gain revenge on Drona, King performs a Yajna to obtain a means of besting him.Draupadi emerged as a beautiful dark-skinned young woman together after her sibling Dhrishtadyumna from the sacrificial fire. In which King Draupad of Panchaal was defeated by Arjun the Pandava Prince on behalf of his Guru Drona. The Palace Of Illusion starts with discussion of past events discussed by Dhai maa and Draupadi or Panchali. Feminists have long been calling upon women to talk about their sexuality, to come out of the shackles of dominating men who have oppressed women’s sexuality and their desires for too long. She is discouraged to think beyond the masculine boundaries. Her interrogation makes people conscious of their prejudices because of which she is discouraged to ask questions. At the second level, she interrogates and questions others. Her interrogation is at two levels first, at an individual level with which she exposes other people’s bias towards her. She has used a dialogic method to reveal and expose the male biases and prejudices. Divakaruni has given Draupadi an interrogative voice in the novel. Divakaruni’s motive in palace of illusions is to represent a ‘feminist’ perspective of the great epic Mahabharata. A feminine perspective given from a woman in a work of literature might be the first step towards defining themselves and hence, empowering women community.įor centuries women all over the world have been forced to be in a marginalised position. Through her text, she tries to portray ‘new truth’ or a ‘new reality’ which can be called ‘simulation’. Divakaruni seems to establish the ‘truth’ which was established by the original masculine text. Draupadi decides to be the author of the drama of her life. Draupadi is born of fire and therefore has a dark complexion, through her complexion and her skin tone she connects herself with Lord Krishna who plays a significant role in both Vyasa’s Mahabharata and Divakaruni Palace of Illusions. Draupadi is the daughter of King Draupad of Panchaal and wife of five Pandavs.

The title first selected by the writer of Mahabharata, Ved vyasa was ‘Jaya’ which means ‘victory’.Mahabharata an Indian mythological epic is the most adopted modern fiction.Ĭhitra Banerjee Divakaruni chose Draupadi as a strong willed and determined character from Mahabharata as ‘Sutradhar’ in her novel the palace of illusions. Walking back to the 1600 B.C and the longest poems of all time Mahabharata which consists of 1,00,000 versus shlokas.

The paper uses method of dialogism and second wave of feminism to critically examine the palace of illusions. This paper explores the idea of feminism represented by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.

The palace of illusions by chitra banerjee