Authors: Research Scholar Poonam Pareek, Dr. Vineet Kumar Purohit
Abstract: This paper, titled Unmaking the ‘Ideal Woman’: Gender, Power, and Resistance in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's Heroines, explores how female agency and resistance is being depicted in selected novels of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. This study examines how Divakaruni problematizes the patriarchal representation of the “ideal woman” as being socially proper, self-sacrificing, submissive and obedient in The Palace of Illusions, The Forest of Enchantments and Sister of My Heart. The paper examines the social constraint to social self-awareness and increasing social autonomy of Draupadi, Sita, Anju and Sudha using a feminist literary approach with the help of Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler and postcolonial feminist perspectives. The analysis also uncovers how Divakaruni's characters are traditionally seen as passive subjects, and how they are empowered as actors who question patriarchy, regains their voice, negotiate cultural expectations, and assert their identity. The paper also underscores the importance of female solidarity, mythological reworking, marriage and cultural power in influencing women's resistance. It concludes that Divakaruni's fiction is not just opposition to tradition, but an interpretation of tradition from the women's point of view, leading to new models of femininity developed through agency, dignity, voice and self-definition. The protagonists of her stories then embody a process of transformation from silence to speech, from oppression to rebellion, from the predetermined woman to the woman who chooses herself.
