Examining Caste Consciousness in Kavita Kane’s Karna’s Wife and Fisher Queen’s Dynasty

Abstract

Use of mythological tales for creating revisionist literature is contemporary approach of the modern Indian writers. Some famous works of literature, based on mythology are written by writers like Devdutt Pattanaik, Amish Tripathi, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Volga, Kevin Missal, SarathKomarraju and Krishna Udayashankar. These writers try to reinterpret mythological characters like Shiva, Rama, Draupadi, Amba, Krishna etc. Kavita Kane is one of the popular woman writers of India who renders Indian mythological texts and writes novels. Her ficitons are known for portrayals of the mythical characters who are less discussed. She picks up marginalized women characters from the mythical literature of India and retells their stories. She raises isssues of identity, individuality, gender, caste, femininity and patriarchy in her fictional works. In her novels, Karna’s Wife and Fisher Queen’s Dynasty, Kane has woven issues of gender and caste. Both of them are based on the Mahabharata. She retells the stories of Uruvi, Karna’s wife and Satyavati, Shantanu’s wife from their perspectives and explore their struggles against discriminations based on gender and caste. The novelist depicts these women characters with their courage, confidence, individuality and power to resist the class or caste-based violence. As modern literary works, their intersectionality is evident and they can be examined keeping in mind multidisciplinary approach. The present article examines caste consciousness as expressed by Kane in her Karna’s Wife and Fisher Queen’s Dynasty.