Mythopoetic Sustainability: Reading Sita through Ecofeminism and Archetypal Consciousness

Mythopoetic Sustainability: Reading Sita through Ecofeminism and Archetypal Consciousness
Chitra Jha

Abstract

This paper explores how Indian mythology is an example of ecology ethics and feminine resilience through a reconstruction of the narrative of Sita from the perspectives of ecofeminism and that of archetypes. The current study frames Sita’s discourse, from her birth to expulsion, being kidnapped to returning home, as a symbolic articulation of the female body and the living earth, which would include some contemporary adaptations such as that of Volga’s The Liberation of Sita, and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Forest of Enchantments and Namita Gokhale’s In Search of Sita. The methodological approach taken has been interpretive and qualitative in nature, incorporating a close textual analysis, Jungian archetypal psychology (as explained by his proponents Carl Jung and Maud Bodkin), and ecofeminist theory (informed by Vandana Shiva, Val Plumwood and Carolyn Merchant).