The IUP Journal of English Studies
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions: Mythology Reconstructed

Article Details
Pub. Date : Sep, 2019
Product Name : The IUP Journal of English Studies
Product Type : Article
Product Code : IJES51909
Author Name : Madhulika Panda
Availability : YES
Subject/Domain : Arts & Humanities
Download Format : PDF Format
No. of Pages : 06

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Abstract

The Palace of Illusions is one of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s acclaimed novels that portrays Draupadi as a very strong and powerful character and retells the Mahabharata from her perspective. Tracing Panchaali’s life—from her fiery birth and lonely childhood, through her complicated relation with the enigmatic Krishna, to marriage, motherhood, and most relevantly her secret affection for Karna, her husbands’ deadliest foe—it is a deeply moving human story about a woman born into a man’s world. The paper studies Divakaruni’s dexterous portrayal of one of the strongest mythological heroines and her focus on reconstructing the grand epic from Draupadi’s perspective.


Introduction

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions takes us to a time that is half-history, half-myth, and wholly magical. It is Panchaali’s Mahabharata as the cover page reads. Divakaruni (2008, iv)1 herself writes:


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