Draupadi’s Quest in Chitra Banerjee’s The Palace of Illusions

Abstract

The Mahabharata, one of India’s great epic is the foundational text for philosophical and spiritual values, educational and religious instructions, ethical obligation (dharma), social norms and gender roles. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions is an explicit example to retell the epic in novel form. To sum up, the length and spirit of such a vast epic was a challenging job for a writer. The palace of Illusions became the bestseller and earned a lot of praise from the critics. Traditionally, Indian society is patriarchal-oriented so the issues related to the suppression of women remained always the main subject of writing. Divakaruni, in her novel The Palace of Illusions, provides a fresh perspective on the life of Draupadi. This novel tells the story of the epic from the female perspective.