Why Mythological Women Matter? Critiquing the Centering of Sita and Draupadi in Select Retellings

Abstract

Literature in varied genres explicates infinite meanings in a text thereby opening numerous possibilities for their re-writing, re-visioning, reinterpretation, and retellings. This attempt is then “a process of recovery and reformation” to revitalize old myths by a new interpretation. Derrida’s notion of openingup the weave of writing to enable other meanings to come to the fore offers feminists a “looking back”(Rich 35), “a revolutionary potential to counter the phallogocentric system” (Sellers 26). The holy trinityof the second wave of feminism introduced and emphasized Ecriture Feminine to recover thesuppressed feminine voices in the multitude of masculine voices; and questioned and explainedpatriarchy’s subjugation techniques in mythology and other literatures. “Retelling” is “the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction” (Rich 35). What Diana Purkiss identifies as three modes of re-writing poetry can be safely applied to the feminist revision of myths: The shifting of focus from male to female; transposing the terms from negative to positive; and allowing a minor character to tell the tale. This paper critiques the centering of Sita and Draupadi in some retellings, thereby ascertaining them as epitomes of timeless ideal of the influential femininity. Further, researchers will try to tackle the subtle nuances of politics of representation and misrepresentation on which the
modern-day theory of ‘feminism’ rests.