Charting a narrative for the apocalypse: Adapting the Indian mythological epic, The Mahabharata, for a global audience, while exploring the continuing influence of Indian myths on contemporary popular Hindi cinema and exploiting this connection to craft a new storytelling paradigm.

Parikh, Eshan 2022. Charting a narrative for the apocalypse: Adapting the Indian mythological epic, The Mahabharata, for a global audience, while exploring the continuing influence of Indian myths on contemporary popular Hindi cinema and exploiting this connection to craft a new storytelling paradigm. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

Preview	PDF - Accepted Post-Print Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (903kB) | Preview
	PDF (Cardiff University Electronic Publication Form) - Supplemental Material Restricted to Repository staff only Download (215kB)

Abstract

Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers (An adaptation of Joseph Campbell’s work on the Hero’s Journey), created a storytelling paradigm that works foremost as an individual narrative, structured around a ‘Hero’. Storytelling exercises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the Baahubali franchise immerse the audiences into intricate, sprawling universes that follow different trajectories with multiple foci. Using the Baahubali franchise for the scope that it offers, this work points to certain limitations of the storytelling paradigm suggested by Vogler. In addition to re-establishing the intricate relationship between mythical and modern narratives, especially cinema, this work furthermore proposes that the building blocks for a new kind of narrative journey already exist in Indian Mythology, specifically the Mahabharata, a megalithic story that unravels without a central heroic figure and comprises multiple intricately connected narratives, extending in different temporal and geographical directions. Section 1 of this work makes an argument for this storytelling paradigm and then establishes its schema in detail. Section 1 ends with a discussion on the possibilities and scope of this unified narrative model that would help storytellers craft these complicated universes, from start to finish, across various mediums. Section 2 (submitted separately) contains the creative work, an adaptation of the Mahabharata in two screenplays constructed using this paradigm. It can be viewed in hard copy at the National Library for Wales and the Arts and Social Studies Library at Cardiff University.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	2 September 2022
Last Modified:	03 Feb 2023 15:46
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/152274

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item