Themes in the play of girish karnad: A critical study

Karnad’s concern is with the life of the modern man that is very complex and lacks in wholeness. The employment of the old tales is to focus on the absurdity of modern life with all its elemental passions and conflicts. In this way the folk tales becomes vehicles for modern living under the impact of western ideologies and systems of knowledge viewing human behaviour from different angles. His outlook towards the present is coloured by prevalent thinking impelled by Marxism, Freudianism and existentialism, symptomatic of a fundamental change in the outlook of the modern man to wars human life and its origin. It cuts man adrift from his metaphysical origin and questions the moral and spiritual values, which hinder human freedom. Man is projected as living in a human society acting and reacting with other fellow beings. In Girish Karnad these modern theories are show operating in the traditional tales. It is under the influence of these ideologies and systems of thought that a sort of Oedipus complex appears to mark all mother-son relationships. All the major characters appear to support from existential alienation to obviate which they indulge in violence and cruelty, and, the idea of god and religion is symptomatic of their helpless condition and neurotic mind only. The historical events in Karnad mirror the current political, religious and social happenings.