Asura: A Tale of Vanquished

Abstract

This is an attempt to analyze how the Malayali author Anand Neelakantan employs the literary device of demythologization in his English novel Asura: Tale of the Vanquished, which retells the story of Ramayana from the perspective of Ravana, the villain the Sanskrit epic Ramayana. Valmiki's projection of the superiority of Aryan race and culture over the Dravidian people and civilization through the portrayal of an idealized Rama is subverted in this novel which projects Ravana as a hero. Neelakantan's attempt to caricature Ravana as a merciless, unprincipled and power-hungry power monger seems to ignore the ideological subversions of Ravana in Kamba’s Tamil version of Ramayana, a work Which unravels the heroism of Ravana. How demythologization operates in Asura, whether its demythologization helps a better understanding of the popular re-readings of Ramayana, how far the author himself is ideologically conditioned in his bold literary are topics addressed in this study. More critical social scientists tend to question the innocence of myth. Western scholars like Herbert Spencer. Max Muller, Roland Barthes, and Claude Levi-Strauss have critically examined the role of myths in conditioning human lives. They seem to think that myth is nothing more than illusion and a misrepresentation of names, leading to self-deception.