Paper Title
Transforming Mythos into Ethos: A Study of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions

Abstract
The present day study of Indian mythology finds its women characters in a bashed, exploited and dominated condition under the patriarchal pillars of power. The deification of women further puts them on a lower threshold from where they find no redemption. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel The Palace of Illusions is a revivification of the stereotypical image that is borne by women since the ancient ages. This narrative by Divakaruni attempts to divest the patriarchal myth that girdles women and compels them to accept their status as the subordinate class in the society.Draupadi, the prime female protagonist in the novel is born out of fire thereby, attaining the name of Yagnaseni.Clifford Geertz who states that religious symbols and rituals in human life form the cultural ethos of a society (2).Barbara Frederickson and Tomi Ann Roberts in their “Objectification Theory” claims that women are museumized as fleshlings and not as humans (176). They elucidate this objectification as “… being treated as a body valued predominantly for its use to others” (174). Draupadi not just withdraws the dominant manuscript of oppression and violence that shrouds women, but also rises as an embodiment of creating a culture of questioning. She fights to re-territorialise herself into a rhizomatic network of relationship. She detaches from being classified as simply a woman. Rather her transforming of the ethical credos that attach women to a singular entity refashions this epic and gives it a neoliberal switch. Keywords - Patriarchy, Objectification, Rhizome, Re-territorialise.