International Research Journal of Education and Technology

The contemporary society is witnessing today an extraordinary spectacle of women’s liberation movements all over the world. It is a universal movement and Indian society is no exception to it. We have the voices of feminism in the writings of a number of writers since the 13th century to the present. However, even in the 21st century, society is male-dominated. It is for this reason that women have been marginalized despite their fifty percent population in the world. Quite a good number of works in the post-modern period illustrate, more or less, how women are exploited in various ways. The inhuman treatment that they receive from the male dominated society indicates that they lose their freedom first and their lives later for the sake of man. Ideally speaking, it is sacrifice, but realistically speaking, it is sheer wastage physical as well as mental, on the part of women. Indian Literature viewed women as role bound possession whose sacrifices preserved the sanctity and the well being of the family. Women characters in the plays of Girish Karnad are not mere society’s obsession for beauty, they are rarely to be found in the real world, but they are the true characters grounded in Indian milieu throughout ages. They are not only sensible and sensitive but also intelligent and bold. His women characters are not only empowered with shrill tongues but also capable of stings. It is true like any other subaltern characters their sting instead of causing harm to others bring their own ruin. The three major women characters in the plays of Yayati, the play of an ancient myth but not mythological, are Devyani, Sharmistha and Chitralekha. All these characters are living a life of hell or at least a part of it. But the combative powers of these three characters could teach Yayati a lesson what thousands of battles and hundreds of sensuous women could not. The article will focus on how Karnad’s female characters in Yayati are struggling to break the fetters of patriarchy and yet are failing at it and succumbing to the patriarchal order of society ultimately

Keywords: Feminism, Patriarchal, Deviation, Subalternism, Feministic Theory.