Gender and myth: Rewriting the feminine in classical and contemporary texts

Abstract

Mythological narratives have long functioned as powerful cultural frameworks through which societies encode and transmit gendered norms, moral values, and hierarchies of power. Far from being neutral or timeless inheritances, myths operate as deeply gendered narrative systems that regulate femininity through archetypes of obedience, sacrifice, purity, and transgression. This paper undertakes a comparative feminist analysis of Greek and Indian mythologies to examine how classical narratives construct the feminine as a symbolic site of control, anxiety, and moral regulation. Drawing on feminist, psychoanalytic, and postcolonial theoretical perspectives, the study analyses key mythological figures such as Medusa and Penelope from Greek mythology, and Sita and Draupadi from the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. These figures reveal recurring patterns of victim-blaming, idealisation of female suffering, and the disciplining of female agency across cultural contexts. The paper further examines contemporary feminist retellings, notably Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Palace of Illusions, to demonstrate how rewriting mythfunctions as an ethical and political intervention in cultural memory. By restoring voice, interiority, and narrative authority to mythic women, these rewritings transform myth from an instrument of patriarchal authority into a dialogic and contested space. The paper argues that feminist myth-rewriting is not merely revisionist but constitutes a critical praxis that challenges inherited power structures, reimagines gendered subjectivity, and affirms myth as a living discourse open to resistance and reinterpretation across time and cultures.