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@article{193532,
        author = {M J Priyavathana and Dr R Sudha},
        title = {Draupadi: A Modern Woman’s Voice in The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni M},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {10},
        pages = {667-669},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=193532},
        abstract = {The Mahabharata, one of the most influential epics of Indian literary and cultural history, has traditionally been narrated through a predominantly male-centered perspective, privileging heroic masculinity while marginalizing female experience. Whereas Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions (2008) offers a powerful revisionist retelling of the epic by relocating the narrative authority to Draupadi, one of its most complex yet historically silenced female figures. By allowing Draupadi to narrate her own life, Divakaruni foregrounds women’s emotional, psychological, and ethical experiences that remain peripheral in Vyasa’s Mahabharata. Draupadi emerges not merely as a legendary queen or the cause of the Kurukshetra war, but as a self-reflective, articulate and resistant woman negotiating identity, desire, justice, and power within a rigidly patriarchal society. This paper examines how Divakaruni reconstructs Draupadi as a modern woman’s voice, employing feminist revisionism to challenge traditional gender hierarchies and reinterpret myth through contemporary concerns of agency, autonomy, and resistance. The study portrays that The Palace of Illusions transforms Draupadi from a marginal epic figure into a symbol of modern female consciousness whose voice resonates with ongoing struggles against patriarchal oppression. It also seeks to analyze how Divakaruni constructs Draupadi as a modern woman’s voice—one that challenges gender inequality, asserts moral agency, and redefines identity within a male-dominated epic tradition.},
        keywords = {Feminism, Mythological Revisionism, Identity, Patriarchy, Female Voice, Resistance},
        month = {March},
        }