Vol. 7, Issue 2, Part F (2025)

This paper examines the representation of Draupadi, Sita, and Ahalya in the Mahabharata and Ramayana through a feminist psychoanalytic lens. These heroines, celebrated as icons of chastity or sacrifice, are simultaneously stripped of erotic subjectivity. Using Freud’s concept of repression alongside feminist interventions by Irigaray and Cixous, the paper analyzes how classical epics silence women’s desires and how contemporary retellings restore them. Texts by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Pratibha Ray, Volga, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, and Kamala Das reimagine these figures as desiring subjects, challenging patriarchal myths that equate female sexuality with sin or subordination. The study argues that such reinterpretations not only reclaim silenced voices but also resonate with contemporary struggles over women’s autonomy in India. This paper situates such retellings within sexuality studies, arguing that they do more than reinterpret myth. They expose how classical texts repressed female erotic subjectivity to maintain patriarchal order, and how feminist rewritings reclaim silenced voices to challenge continuing forms of repression in Indian society—from moral policing to debates around women’s autonomy and sexuality.