Revisiting the New Woman in Indian Mythology

Authors(1) :-Ayuta Mohanty

The trend of introducing the New Woman in the novels started in India from the time when India got independence. These women characters were termed as the New Woman because they opposed the traditionally patriarchal mentality, orthodox concepts and values. She differed from the conventional ideal woman who was meek, submissive, oppressed and surrendered before the patriarchy. But the question that arises is whether no such woman ever existed before twentieth century? Is the New Woman a product of modern world? The answer is in negative. It is true that the term and the concept came to its existence in the modern time but traces of the characteristics that the New Woman possess can be found in our mythologies that narrates the stories of incidents that happened in ancient times. This paper focuses on two such female characters from Indian mythology who were bold, fierce, brave and assertive. They had a broad outlook even in the ancient period. They were ready to oppose and resist the traditional norms whenever necessary. The two female characters discussed in this paper are Urmila from Kavita Kane's Sita's Sister and Paanchali from Chitra Banerjee's The Palace of Illusions. Both these characters have been portrayed as a woman who is strong, bold, fierce and assertive, having an independent existence. They are capable of taking their own decisions and also ready to face the consequences of those decisions. They stood for what they thought was right and resisted what according to them was wrong. The way both the characters have been portrayed, they surely can serve as role models for today's feminists. Thus it may not be wrong to refer Kavita's Urmila and Chitra's Paanchali as the forerunners of the New Woman.

Authors and Affiliations

Ayuta Mohanty
PhD Scholar, KIIT University, Patia, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India

New Woman, Mythology, Urmila, Paanchali, Strong, Assertive

  1. Kane, Kavita. Sita’s Sister. New Delhi: Rupa Publications, 2016. Print.
  2. Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. The Palace of Illusions. New York: Doubleday Publishing Group, 2008. Print.
  3. Mohanty, Ayuta & Das, Puspita. (2016). URMILA’S FEMINIST STANCE AGAINST PATRIARCHY IN SITA’S SISTER.. International Journal of Advanced Research. 4. 1621-1624. 10.21474/IJAR01/1971.Web

Publication Details

Published in : Volume 4 | Issue 2 | January-February 2018
Date of Publication : 2018-02-28
License:  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Page(s) : 450-456
Manuscript Number : IJSRST184164
Publisher : Technoscience Academy

Print ISSN : 2395-6011, Online ISSN : 2395-602X

Cite This Article :

Ayuta Mohanty, " Revisiting the New Woman in Indian Mythology", International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology(IJSRST), Print ISSN : 2395-6011, Online ISSN : 2395-602X, Volume 4, Issue 2, pp.450-456, January-February-2018.
Journal URL : https://ijsrst.com/IJSRST184164
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