Paper Details

Girish Karnad is a well-known playwright. He wrote various plays. His all plays can be categorized as feminist plays. One more aspect of his plays is his treatment of myth in his plays like, ‘Bali: the sacrifice’, ‘The Fire and the Rain’, ‘Naga-Mandala’, ‘Hayavadana’ etc. All his plays are based on folktales which are an integral part of Indian culture. He tries to give justice to the female characters through his plays. His plays are flourished with the elements of myth and reality which are told in folktales. He is a perfect master of handling myths, rituals, traditions and customs in Indian society. The present study is to find out mythological elements in Girish Karnad’s play ‘Hayavadana’ and its connection with realistic elements in Indian society. Though he portrays events, characters, socio-cultural problems in historical and mythological folktales. He handles all situations from modern methods. Girish Karnad gives solutions to the problems through his plays. Girish Karnad makes myths, legends, culture and folktales as a medium for his new vision for creating his masterpieces through his plays. His most of the plays are a humanist retelling of history. The present study aims to know about Girish Karnad’s contribution in handling myth, culture, history and legends in his plays.

Myth, Legends, folktales,realism, archetype