Writing the ‘Other’: En-Gendered Resistance through ‘Écriture Féminine’

Abstract

This paper attempts to read the silences and omissions that are brought out in the revisionist re-tellings, and the rationale behind the exercise. The dire need for questioning the patriarchal tropes xviii that confined women within the Lakshaman Rekha (boundary) of ‘propriety’ was met by the revisionist authors who chose to re-tell the Epic story with modern sensitivities. These writings give expression to the disquiet that has simmered beneath the surface in the patriarchal texts. The voices that were silenced in the meta-narrative have found a release in the re-tellings. The unidirectionality of the meta-narrative is countered by re-inventing these stories through the eyes of women.