Abstract

Epics and myths continue to exert a phenomenal impact on the literary landscape, linguistic charter, and cultural traditions of the world today. These works hailed as classical and sublime, serve as the cornerstones for neoteric renderings with their own contexts. The trend of retelling or revisioning classical, canonical themes or familiar mythical tale tropes has been a longstanding and enduring literary phenomenon. This trend has dealt with the epics of the east and west with prodigious zeal and the works have been lauded and celebrated in the recent decade of the twenty-first century, especially those with a feminist or female centered perspective. The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni is a retelling of the oriental epic The Mahabharata through the eyes of Draupadi, the enigmatic Pandava queen. Circe by Madeline Miller is a retelling of the occidental epic The Odyssey through the life of Circe. This paper aims to explore the representation of gender and social status through the feminist portrayals and narratives in the works chosen and their significance. This paper also seeks to exhibit the parallels between both the representations from the East and the West through a comparative study.