Reinterpreting Sita: A Feminist Analysis of Gender and Agency in The Ramayana

Abstract

This research reinterprets the character of Sita in Valmiki‘s The Ramayana through the critical frameworks of Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity as well as religious feminism to offer a reinterpretation of her position and identity within a patriarchal social and moral order. Traditionally, Sita is represented as an ideal, obedient and self-sacrificing woman, she has often been read as passive and submissive; however, a close textual analysis of key narrative moments, including the Swayamvara, Exile, Captivity in Lanka, Agni Pariksha, and her final Return to the Earth, reveals a pattern of deliberate, ethically grounded actions that complicate this perception. The study is therefore justified by the need to reexamine female characters whose identities have been predominantly shaped by patriarchal interpretations and to address the limited critical attention given to forms of resistance expressed through culturally authorised roles. Religious feminism allows for a reinterpretation of Sita as a spiritually autonomous figure whose moral authority challenges male dominated explanation of the epic. While using Butler's idea of performativity, we see how the multiple occasions of Sita performing the ideal feminine roles function as a site of both compliance and subversion. Collectively, these frameworks illustrate that Sita negotiates patriarchal expectations in ways that expose their internal tensions and limitations. This reinterpretation creates a new vision of Sita as a conscious resistance to the limits of patriarchal expectation, whose autonomous ethical choices affirm her dignity, identity, autonomy, and moral sovereignty within her sociocultural constraints. In addition to analysing the character of Sita as she appears in Valmiki's The Ramayana, this dissertation provides an analysis of the changing perception of Sita through a comparison of the various adaptations of her story with the original Valmiki‘s The Ramayana and the implications of those changes for contemporary understandings of Sita.