A DYSTOPIAN VISION IN THE PALACE OF ILLUSION- A CRITICAL STUDY

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an author, poet, activist and professor. She is considered an Indian American writer. Divakaruni often focuses on the experience of South Asian immigrants and her works are largely set in India and the United States. The present paper deals with the reading of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's remarkable historical ction- “The Palace of Illusion”. A number of researches have been done on this work with a Feminist and Psychological approach. This research paper will attempt the analyzing the work with an alternative perspective which is a Dystopian vision. With answering these questions- How Divakaruni's work- 'The palace of Illusion' is re-imaging the protagonist's perspective in a dystopian society instead of retelling the Indian epic? How dystopian vision is an appropriate choice for analyzing the present work? The paper will also argue that Dystopia is not just bounded to science ction although it can also be related to other genres of ction.

Recreating Draupadi: A Study of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions

Mythological retellings have explored those issues of the epics which were submerged in the objective representation of the events. Redefining the existence of the epical characters, these revisionist writings have presented the events from the alternate perspectives. With an attempt to deconstruct the concept of ‘truth’, the contemporary mythological retellings have tried to demystify the dominant ideologies, and for this purpose they had brought into forefront the overlooked characters. In the grand narrative of the epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata the perspectives of the women characters were often overlooked; at the same time the objective representation of the events could not provide the necessary space to delve deep into their psyche. Therefore, ample numbers of the contemporary mythological retellings have highlighted the lives of the women characters of the epics, by presenting the events from their perspectives to explore those facets of the ‘truth’ which were overlooked in the source texts. This research article has attempted to reconstruct the identity of Draupadi of the Mahabharata by focusing on her character as depicted by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in her The Palace of Illusions, a wonderful mythological fiction reinterpreting the events of the epic Mahabharata from Draupadi’s perspective. Adopting a feminist stance, this research article has explored Draupadi’s resistance to patriarchal domination, and in this way, here an attempt has been undertaken to reassert her individuality and to redetermine her role in the epic.

Review of Chitra Banerjee’s Arranged Marriage Stories

Book Review: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, ‘Arranged Marriage Stories’, Anchor, 1996, 320p, ISBN-13: 978-0385483506 Reviewed by Niranjana G, Research Scholar, VIT Chennai, Bhuvaneswari, Assistant Professor, VIT Chennai

The Palace of Illusions-Voice of a Disillusioned Woman

Diaspora writing is a recent trend in literature. Many writers especially women writers excel in this field. These diasporic writers though they live in a foreign land always hold their love in their writings. India is a land of myth and legends and hence many Indian writers borrow their plot from Hindu mythology which is used as a literary device. Many writers of the independence and post-independence era used mythology to spread nationalism and to guide humanity in the right path. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a diasporic writer who always holds a piece of her love for motherland in her writings. She extensively uses Hindu mythology in her works. She uses these myths to instill courage in her woman protagonists. She tries to prove how myths guide the immigrant women to overcome their conflicts in life. Her novels explain how myths instruct the humanity to lead a righteous life.

SELF-QUEST: UNVEILING THE JOURNEY MOTIF IN CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI’S OLEANDER GIRL

The quest for self-identityposits crucially in diasporic discourse. This paper is an attempt to examine how the multi-faceted novelist, poet, activist Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni evokes the journey motif in her bildungsroman novel Oleander Girl and strategically uses it to showcase the growth and development of her main protagonist Korobi trajectorially.The focus will be an exploration of the parallel journey – one towards an outward physical destination, and the other one aboutan inner journey towardswholeness, completeness and selfhood. The research paper seeks to analyse how Korobi traverses through the various stages of the journey during her formidable quest to seek answers regarding her true heritage and how this turns into a journey ofself-discoveryas well.

The Concept of Liberation in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions

The great Indian Epic Mahabharata celebrates the battle between Pandavas and Kauravas and signifies Draupadi as the fundamental cause of it. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni unwrapped this belief and made Draupadi a powerful woman with great determination and courage. The Epics all over the world has portrayed woman as pale shadows of men, and men as great warriors. This silence of women has triggered Divakaruni to retell the epic in female voice. Literature always tried to share the changes in society. Unveiling the perfect lady images to the woman, modern female writers made their own literature. This paper goes through the life of an epic woman who has strong cravings of liberation. Also tries to find out whether a female protagonist can undergo inclinations in the life of Male characters who always hold the seal of divine figure, who always live for the warfare.