Revisiting The Mahabharata: Draupadi’s voice in Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions

Abstract

This paper attempts to read Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel The Palace of Illusions as a feminist interpretation of the Indian epic The Mahabharata. In the Indian scenario, women have been encouraged to follow the ideal women of the past: Sita, Savitri, Draupadi but their stories are given to us by the male writers from a male perspective. One wonders what these women would have had to say about their lives and here comes into focus Divakaruni’s novel. The paper seeks to look at the delineation of the character of Draupadi and the textual strategies used to give prominence to the voice and thoughts of one of the central figures of this great epic. The paper seeks to answer whether The Palace of Illusions is a resistant text or a revisionist one, and how far it includes women in storytelling which hitherto has been male-centred. The paper uses the method of discourse and context analysis to arrive to the conclusion that Divakaruni has ably articulated the thoughts and voice of Draupadi and has successfully brought the story to the audience from a female’s point of view.