The Never-Ending Silent Voice

Selective Amplification and Marginal Silences in The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Abstract

This paper explores the dynamics of selective amplification and continuous silence in the epics or the epic retellings. This study particularly focuses on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions, the retelling of the great Hindu epic Mahabharata, from Draupadi’s perspective. The study especially highlights the pivotal figures of Kunti and Karna, whose partial or muted presences contrast with the foregrounding of Draupadi’s voice. Vyasa’s Mahabharata marginalises many significant characters of the epic, and most importantly Draupadi. Using Homi Bhabha's concept of hybridity, Mikhail Bakhtin's polyphonic model of narration, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's theory of the subaltern, the analysis demonstrates how silence in the novel serves not as absence but as a purposeful narrative and cultural strategy. Through close textual interpretations, this research paper explores how Kunti's authority is communicated through mediation and silence, whereas Karna's tragedy develops through unacknowledged regret and deferred recognition. The study makes an argument that Divakaruni's narrative choices illustrate both the liberating possibilities and the constraints of retelling myth across cultural boundaries by employing these silent voices within the context of diaspora. Ultimately, by theorising silence as a constant, generative force in story formation and cultural memory, this study advances research on diasporic literature, feminist narratology, and epic retellings.