Portrayal of Myth and Entanglement of Woman in Girish Karnad’s Naga- mandala

English Literature

Girish Karnad is a contemporary Indian playwright, actor and movie director in Kannada language. He was conferred the prestigious of Jnanpith award (1999) and has been honoured with Padma Bhushan (1992). Girish Karnad wrote a play Nagamandala in 1987-88, based on two oral tales from Karnataka which he first heard from his friend, guru and hero A.K Ramanujan to whom Karnard dedicates this play. It was translated by the same author. Nagamandala revolves around the female character Rani also referred as Queen who is hated by her husband Appanna and has an illicit relationship with a woman. Rani gets disappointed with the ways of her husband who comes only for lunch to the house. Later she becomes pregnant by a cobra (Naga) which comes in the form of her husband every night unknowingly her. Appanna suspects her for adultery and so Rani proves her chastity by performing the snake ordeal and wins the heart of her husband. In Nagamandala Karnad uses folktale and myth to reveal the complexity of human relationship. It portrays the intimate relationship between a man and a woman and the social norms prevailing in Indian society. This paper is an endeavour to portray the myth and tradition in the play and analyzes the character of Rani who is a typical Indian woman, ready to suffer at the hands of her husband with an empty hope that her husband will return to her in the end.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.