Deconstructing the Signs of Subjugation: A Feminist Re-visionist Reading of the Ramayana in Snehalata Reddy’s Play, Sita (1974)
Deconstructing the Signs of Subjugation: A Feminist Re-visionist Reading of the Ramayana in Snehalata Reddy’s Play, Sita (1974)

Summary/Abstract: Myths and mythology have always attracted critical attention. As the first creative faculty of the human mind, authors use them as framework for their writings. Myths are ideology-laden narratives, with a deep psychological impact. They are the living embodiments of India’s cultural consciousness, tales Indians live by and breathe on a daily basis. Critics acknowledge their power as sources of information, while feminists bring out their hidden politics. Myths maintain a master-slave, superior-inferior relationship between men and women. A feminist perspective deconstructs the male dominance and foregrounds the suppressed female voices in these tales. The present paper focuses on Snehalata Reddy’s revisionist writing of the fire-test episode from the Ramayana told from Sita’s point of view in the play with the same name. The play foregrounds the agony and humiliation of Sita and unmasks, step by step, the hegemonic strategies adopted by patriarchy to keep women in subordinate position. Derrida’s deconstruction theory and feminism’s idea of ‘ecriture feminine’ are used as methodological frameworks for this analysis. Foucault’s ideas on the production of truths and Baudrillard’s hyperreal world will be also referred to.

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