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Revisionism in literature involves subverting established narratives to foreground marginalised perspectives, critique dominant ideologies and construct counter-narratives to canonical texts. Existing scholarship has largely examined revisionism as an ideological or thematic intervention in the canon. This study examines the narrative form of revisionist texts as a strategy of subversion, using Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Forest of Enchantments. The novel retells the events of the Ramayana using Sita’s first-person narration while privileging memory, interiority and situated knowledge over epic omniscience. Drawing on Stanzel’s typological circle and Fludernik’s concept of experientiality, the study analyses how the novel reconstructs Sita’s subjectivity through redistribution of narrative authority and perspective, thereby reshaping readers’ access to Sita’s experiential world. The study argues that revisionist subversion is achieved not merely through ideological reinterpretation but through the narrative reorganisation of authority and experience, positioning narrative form itself as a site of resistance and epistemic reconstruction.
Ms. Meera Jacob Elamatha, Dr. Suguna Rajamanikkam. “Narrative Strategies of Subversion: Understanding Literary Revisionism through Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Forest of Enchantments.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 681-697. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.41.
Open Access · CC BY 4.0 · Crossref DOI ·
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