Masculine Fictions: Memory, Amnesia, and the Iteration of Patriarchy in Namita Gokhale's Shakuntala

Abstract

This paper conducts a Critical Literary Analysis of Namita Gokhale’s novel, Shakuntala: The Play of Memory, to deconstruct the mechanisms of patriarchal power embedded within the ancient Indian myth of Shakuntala and King Dushyanta. Utilizing Judith Butler’s core concepts of Gender Performativity and Iteration, the study argues that Dushyanta’s masculine identity is a fragile fiction dependent on the continuous, ritualistic repetition of societal roles and the strategic suppression of memory.

The analysis reframes the King's amnesia not as a divine curse, but as a political and structural performative failure as the inability to cite the law of his marriage contract. This momentary crisis exposes the profound contingency of his sovereign power, which is only quickly re-established because his royal status insulates him from the total social expulsion suffered by Shakuntala. By examining the actions of Dushyanta and the Sage Durvasa, the paper demonstrates how male agency is constrained by a cyclical pattern of Desire, Command, Forgetting, and Re-establishment that reinforces the hegemonic narrative.

Furthermore, the study concludes that the ultimate Paternal Fix, where the recognition of the male heir, Bharata is the essential act of iteration required to secure the fractured patriarchal line. Gokhale’s novel, through this Butlerian lens, functions as an allegory for historical amnesia, revealing how foundational myths suppress female contribution to ensure the uninterrupted continuity of male-dominated history.