Advanced International Journal for Research

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Verbiage Without Volition: The Ambivalence of Female Agency in Pratibha Rai’s Yajnaseni and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions

Author(s) Dr. Roshni
Country India
Abstract Draupadi’s lasting significance in the Mahabharata extends beyond the humiliation that becomes inseparable from the epic’s tragedy to include tension between her exceptional eloquence and her restricted control over the forces governing her life. Modern retellings of the epic have transformed her from a subject whose story is told into the narrator of her own experiences. This paper investigates the implications of this transformation through a comparative reading of Pratibha Rai’s Yajnaseni (1984) and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions (2008). It contends that narrative self-consciousness does not guarantee an equivalent expansion of volitional agency. Building on Saba Mahmood’s reconceptualization of agency under conditions of constraint, the paper draws an analytical distinction between narrative, discursive and volitional agency in order to investigate the relationship between self-expression, interpretation and consequential action. Using comparative close reading, this study illustrates that while both novels substantially enhance Draupadi’s narrative and discursive agency – enabling her to interpret her experiences, interrogate imposed meanings and express desire – her capacity for self-determination still remains constrained by familial, marital and political structures. Yajnaseni foregrounds Draupadi’s negotiation of her involuntary polyandrous marriage and her construction of a workable sense of self within restrictive circumstances while The Palace of Illusions highlights the retrospective narrator’s capacity to reassess her past choices, recognise unrealised alternatives and differentiate desires from lived reality. Both texts represent retrospective narration enables a form of self-expression although it falls short of granting the power to re-write the events narrated. The paper does not equate voice with volition or accommodation with uncomplicated consent and argues that the feminist significance of these retellings lies in their nuanced understanding of agency. Draupadi’s voice broadens the limits of self-expression and interpretation even when her volitional agency remains constrained thus exposing in a persistent gap between selfhood and self-determination thus challenging the conventional understanding of female agency.
Keywords Draupadi, female agency, narrative agency, discursive agency, volitional agency, feminist rewriting, Yajnaseni, The Palace of Illusions, agency under restraint, retrospective narration.
Field Sociology > Linguistic / Literature
Published In Volume 6, Issue 6, November-December 2025
Published On 2025-11-07
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E-ISSN 3048-7641
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