Advanced International Journal for Research

E-ISSN: 3048-7641   •   Impact Factor: 9.11

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Call for Paper Volume 7, Issue 1 (January-February 2026) Submit your research before last 3 days of February to publish your research paper in the issue of January-February.
Submit Research Paper Join as a Reviewer

Plagiarism is checked by the leading plagiarism checker TurnItIn

Call for Paper

Volume 7 Issue 1
January-February 2026

Submit your research paper

Indexing Partners
Academia Advanced Sciences Index Bielefeld Academic Search Engine CiteSeer DRJI Google Scholar Independent Search Engine & Directory Network ISI (International Scientific Indexing) Issuu Mendeley Research Networks
RefSeek ResearcherId - Thomson Reuters ResearchGate Scirus Scribd Semantic Scholar UTeM - Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka Wiki for Call for Papers WorldCat Zenodo

From Subaltern Histories to Feminist Mythmaking: Women’s Voice, Agency, and Resistance in Mahasweta Devi and Kavita Kane

Author(s) Md. Ghulam Sarwar, Dr. Binay Shanker Roy
Country India
Abstract This paper undertakes a comparative feminist analysis of the representation of women’s voice, agency, and resistance in the writings of Mahasweta Devi and Kavita Kane, two writers who work in markedly different narrative terrains yet share a common commitment to recovering silenced female subjectivities. While Mahasweta Devi writes from the ground of subaltern history, documenting the lived realities of tribal, Dalit, and marginalized women subjected to caste, class, and state violence, Kavita Kane engages in feminist mythmaking by reinterpreting women from Indian epics who have traditionally been reduced to symbolic or moral functions. The paper argues that both writers challenge patriarchal structures, but they do so through distinct narrative strategies shaped by their respective engagements with history and myth.
Drawing on subaltern studies, feminist historiography, and feminist myth criticism, the study examines how women’s voices emerge under different conditions of silencing. In Mahasweta Devi’s fiction, female agency often arises through bodily endurance, refusal, and confrontation, where resistance is forged in moments of extreme oppression and historical neglect. Her narratives expose how official histories erase the suffering and defiance of marginalized women, compelling them to speak through silence, damaged bodies, and radical acts of non-compliance. In contrast, Kavita Kane’s novels reclaim mythological women by restoring interiority, ethical reflection, and conscious choice. Her feminist retellings resist patriarchal mythic traditions not through overt rebellion, but through re-inscription, where women assert autonomy by reinterpreting their roles, desires, and moral authority within familiar epic frameworks.
The comparative framework of this paper highlights how history and myth function as two complementary feminist strategies. Where subaltern history demands recognition through disruption and confrontation, feminist mythmaking enables resistance through reinterpretation and narrative revision. By placing Mahasweta Devi and Kavita Kane in dialogue, the paper demonstrates that feminist recovery is not a singular method but a spectrum of narrative interventions shaped by context, genre, and audience. Ultimately, the study contributes to contemporary feminist literary criticism by showing how Indian women’s writing negotiates the politics of voice and agency across the domains of lived history and cultural memory.
Keywords Subaltern studies; feminist mythmaking; women’s voice; agency and resistance; Mahasweta Devi; Kavita Kane; feminist historiography; myth revision; Indian women’s writing
Field Sociology > Linguistic / Literature
Published In Volume 6, Issue 4, July-August 2025
Published On 2025-08-23
View / Download PDF File

Share this



E-ISSN 3048-7641
CrossRef

CrossRef DOI is assigned to each research paper published in our journal.

AIJFR DOI prefix is
10.63363/aijfr

Downloads
Research Paper Format Copyright Permission Form and Undertaking Form Cover Page Vol 7 Isu 1Cover Page Vol 6 Isu 6Cover Page Vol 6 Isu 5

All research papers published on this website are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, and all rights belong to their respective authors/researchers.

CC-BY-SA Open Access

About AIJFR
Fees & Payment
Current Issue
Publication Archive 		Submit Research Paper
Track Submission Status
Publication Guidelines
Publication Ethics
Peer Review & Plagiarism 		Join as a Reviewer
Editors & Reviewers
Reviewer Referral Program
Get Reviewer Membership Certi. 		Website/Journal Policies
Usage Policy
Content Policies
Privacy Policy
Contact Us +91-9898-79-39-59 editor@aijfr.com