LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 24:12 December 2024
ISSN 1930-2940

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         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Women Antagonists in Vijaydan Detha’s Folktales of the Domestic Space

Dr Rashmi Bhura and Dr Mekhala Venkatesh


Courtesy: www.amazon.com

Abstract

The transgressive narratives of Rajasthani Folklorist Vijaydan Detha’s folk literary corpus has embedded innumerable patterns of socio-cultural and domestic sensibilities. Folktales are at once fictional but communal, their meanings therefore expose discourses of folk understanding. Vijaydan Detha’s folktales are domestic in the nature of the plot as well as in their sources. Such tales have been circulated and collected by Bijji (Vijaydan Detha) from women of Borunda. As such, tropes of domestic villainy and familial relations are prevalent. The methodology of such tropes of violence and evil is, however, as transgressive as Bijji’s folktales. In the present research we trace such characters and their relations that are villainous towards other characters. A set of women antagonists, i.e., vamps can be characterized who embody indirect relations to the victims, and eventually display apparent villainy and violence. Four folktales of Detha are studied in the present research to uncover specific patterns, tropes and character traits. The idea of domestic space and women antagonists in the presence of other characters reveal an ingrained sense of family relations between a woman and her husband's family.

Keywords: Vijaydan Detha, Bijji, Rajasthani folklorist, Antagonist, Domestic Spaces, Folktales, Re-telling, Stereotyping, Trope, Vamps.

Introduction

Folktales from across the globe have held one very important and common contribution. They have represented a world that exists constantly, even when it doesn’t necessarily exist in reality. This constant communication of man between his real world and a world of tales, influences his very being. Cross-influences in fact are more than just common here; they evince the fact that folktales are mirrors of society and culture (Dundes).

Of this significance of folktales, shoots the need to characterize and categorize the tales to ascertain their immediate role. The orality of these tales has shaped factors that assess the meaning of the tales in changing contexts and time. Along with this, the form and literary identity of the tales gets modified too, due to trends of translation and digitalization. Hence, folktales in the present times exist in multiple versions, offering multiple meanings. While culture and structure of folktales evolve, the issues – both serious and subsect – are broadly static. The motifs are common and recurrent, the themes are social and cultural. With movement elsewhere, the folktales foreground these series of meaning within relevance of the context, rather than replacing one with the other.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr Rashmi Bhura
JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), Bangalore
rashmibhura07@gmail.com

Dr Mekhala Venkatesh
JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), Bangalore
mekhalavenkat@gmail.com
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