Revisionist mythmaking in The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divarkaruni and Forest by Ambai

Abstract

Revisionist mythmaking is a concept that has been used by writers, especially feminist writers through the years to dismantle dominant mythical legends rooted in patriarchy and to re-establish the portrayal of women in modern narratives. Works that have employed revisionist mythmaking show how contemporary narratives re-visions the male-centric storytelling of the past which characterizes majority of the women in the narrative to be passive, meek and sacrificial individuals. This allows classic epics such as Ramayana, Mahabharata, Odyssey and Iliad to be rewritten in an alternative perspective, majorly centered on the ‘other’ in both feminist criticism and subaltern studies. The novel The Forest of Enchantments retells the story of the great Indian epic Ramayana from the perspective of Sita and the story Forest from the short story collection In a Forest, a Deer by Ambai compares the journey of Sita to the protagonist Chenthiru’s journey. Both the stories act as a subversion of Ramayana by providing the perspective of the ‘other’ in a feminist lens. This paper aims to explain how the character of Sita is revisioned through the works as a character with resilience, agency and inner strength moving away from the epitomized image of Sita as a docile and dutiful wife.