Female Body as a Site of Resistance in “Draupadi”

Abstract

“Darupadi,” the epic character, is subversively presented by Mahasweta Devi’s short story challenging patriarchal and oppressive social systems. The story depicts how patriarchal power establishes itself as a hazard to the female other by trailing the prerequisites of contingencies that meld together history, politics and social systems. Draupadi challenges the society through transgression and ruination which can override the normal interpretive strategies of a society where the female other is imposed with a subjective self-consolidation. What is unachievable by the female other is indistinctly reproofed through a keen defiance of sexual differential. Thus, female body becomes a site for resistance subverting imposition of patriarchal authority and power in order to disengage gender through violence. Draupadi counters patriarchal power through body to overcome isolation, destitution and desertion from the social institutions that are supposed to fashion the rights of women. Body shaming and dishonour, consequently, becomes a site for enunciation to counter act the deployment of power over the body. This essay attempts to map how Devi, in her story, employs and asserts female body as a site of resistance.