International Journal of Social Science Research (IJSSR)

Contours of Womanhood: Visual and Textual Reinterpretations of Epic Heroines

Indian epic narratives have long functioned as influential cultural texts that shape ethical values, social norms, and particularly gendered ideals within Hindu society. Among their most enduring figures are Sita from the Ramayana and Draupadi from the Mahabharata, whose lives, actions, and sufferings have served as templates for normative constructions of femininity. This paper undertakes a comparative study of the visual and textual portrayals of these epic heroines by examining Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings—Sita in Ashoka Grove and Draupadi at the Court of Virat—alongside contemporary reinterpretations in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novels The Forest of Enchantments and The Palace of Illusions. The paper argues that while Varma’s nineteenth-century paintings visually codify ideals of feminine grace, restraint, and moral duty grounded in classical Hindu mythology and colonial-nationalist aesthetics, Divakaruni’s novels engage in a conscious deconstruction of these ideals. Drawing upon gender studies, deconstructive reading practices, and queer theory, the study explores how both visual and textual narratives destabilize fixed notions of womanhood, power, and identity associated with Sita and Draupadi.