Issues of Gender Discrimination, Questions of Identity, Themes of Myth in Githa Hariharan’s The Thousand Faces of Night

Abstract

This paper focuses on the woman-centredness, myth and its remembering, the larger issue of gender-discrimination, the question of identity, the theme of quest in Githa Hariharan’s The Thousand Faces of Night (1992). It also portrays this novel as a bildungsroman, a form particularly adapted to deal with the themes of self-discovery, self-definition, and self-affirmation. This tale concentrates round the lives of the three women Devi, Mayamma and Devi’s mother Sita. Hariharan has purposefully integrated the stories of mythical heroines such as Gandhari, Kunti, Sita, Amba and so on to highlight the nature and breadth of the influence of myths on the lives of human beings. Alongside the fabled legends Hariharan has sewn the stories of saints narrated by Devi’s father-in-law. Hariharan has tried to disprove the myths illustrating how Devi imagines herself as a mythical princess, strays from the sanctity of household life, endures disillusionment, and ultimately awakes to plant her feet firmly on the realistic foundations.