Question

"Analyse the human characters in the play yayati ?​

Answer 1

Answer:

The Criterion: Annonal Journal in English

Girish Karnad's Yayati and Ball: The Sacrifice: A Study in Female Sexuality

Pratima Chaitanya

Assistant Professor,

Department of English,

Harishchandra PG College Varanasi-India

Gender issues seem to be suffused in most of the plays of Girish Karmad. In his plays, Karnad very dexterously pictures the condition of a typical Indian female, ruled by the patriarchal order bounded by tradition, but whose spirit remains unbounded. Although the playwright is not an out and out feminist like Henrik Ibsen, the playwright of The Doll's House, but the problems of a female in a prejudiced, biased patriarchal society are referred to in most plays by the playwright. The issue of the gender-bias in society and the oppression of women by the patriarchal order happen to form an important part of Kamad's plays. At the same time, Karnad depicts women enthused with feminism, fighting the unjust norms of the patriarchal order. Also more often than not such a direct encounter with patriarchy leads the women to death or disaster. The present paper undertakes to study the treatment of female in two plays of Karnad based on myths, namely Yayati (1961) and Ball: The Sacrifice (1980; rendered into English in 2004).

Kamad has borrowed the myth of Yayatri from the "Adiparva" of the Mahabharata. Yavari re-tells the age-old story of the king who in his longing for eternal youth does not hesitate to usurp the youth and vitality of his son. Kamad takes liberty with the myth and weaves complex dimensions into the plot borrowed from the Mahabharata. To the mythical story of Yayati he adds new characters and alters the story-line so as to deepen its connotative richness which gives it contemporary appeal. In Kamad's Yayati, king Yayati is married to Devyani, an "Aryan" princess and during the course of the play, develops an illicit relationship with Sharmishtha, an "Anarya", and openly expresses his desire to marry her. Puru, here figures as the son of another of the king's spouse, who again like Sharmishtha,

December 2010

Explanation: