International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

E-ISSN: 2582-2160   •   Impact Factor: 9.24

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Call for Paper Volume 8, Issue 5 (September-October 2026) Submit your research before last 3 days of October to publish your research paper in the issue of September-October.
Submit Research Paper Join as a Reviewer

Plagiarism is checked by the leading plagiarism checker TurnItIn

Call for Paper

Volume 8 Issue 5
September-October 2026

Submit your research paper

Indexing Partners
Academia Advanced Sciences Index Bielefeld Academic Search Engine CiteSeer DRJI Google Scholar Independent Search Engine & Directory Network ISI (International Scientific Indexing) Issuu Mendeley Research Networks
RefSeek ResearcherId - Thomson Reuters ResearchGate Scirus Scribd Semantic Scholar UTeM - Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka Wiki for Call for Papers WorldCat Zenodo

From Sacred Narrative to Negotiated Narrative: Reimagining Mythology in Contemporary Fiction

Author(s) Mr. Abhishek Kumar Jain
Country India
Abstract Contemporary mythological fiction revisits inherited narratives by transforming familiar characters, reworking episodes, and foregrounding perspectives that have received limited attention in earlier tellings. This paper examines how selected works of contemporary Indian and global fiction negotiate mythological traditions through changes in characterization, narrative structure, and moral emphasis. Using a qualitative comparative textual approach, the study considers eleven novels: Anand Neelakantan’s Asura: Tale of the Vanquished and Ajaya: Roll of the Dice; Amish Tripathi’s The Immortals of Meluha; Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions; Ashwin Sanghi’s The Krishna Key; Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad; Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls; Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles and Circe; Joanne Harris’s The Gospel of Loki; and Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne. The analysis is organized around three dimensions: degree of narrative transformation, contemporary social relevance, and narrative perspective. It asks how these works revise inherited representations of heroism, villainy, gender, authority, identity, and marginalization. The paper argues that mythological retellings create interpretive space between inherited narratives and contemporary concerns; however, a change in narrator or characterization does not automatically dismantle the social and ideological structures represented in a story. The cultural and moral significance of these novels is therefore approached as a textual possibility rather than a demonstrated effect on readers.
Keywords Keywords: mythological retellings; negotiated narrative; narrative transformation; counter-narrative; narrative agency; cultural memory; moral ambiguity; contemporary fiction.
Field Arts
Published In Volume 8, Issue 5, September-October 2026
Published On 2026-10-11
DOI https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i05.89560
View / Download PDF File

Share this



E-ISSN 2582-2160
CrossRef

CrossRef DOI prefix of IJFMR is 10.36948/ijfmr

Downloads
Research Paper Format Copyright Permission Form and Undertaking Form

All research papers published on this website are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, and all rights belong to their respective authors/researchers.

CC-BY-SA Open Access

About IJFMR
Fees & Payment
Current Issue
Publication Archive 		Submit Research Paper
Track Submission Status
Publication Guidelines
Publication Ethics
Peer Review & Plagiarism 		Join as a Reviewer
Editors & Reviewers
Reviewer Referral Program
Get Reviewer Membership Certi. 		Website/Journal Policies
Usage Policy
Content Policies
Privacy Policy
Contact Us +91-9687-828-838 editor@ijfmr.com
Powered by Sky Research Publication and Journals