Gender, Transformation, and the Body: Investigating Selected Magahi Folk Tales

Abstract

Bodily transformations are very common in folk tales, and they act symbolically to bring about some turn of events or act as motifs. This paper investigates three such selected Magahi Folk tales­ from Sheela Verma’s book ‘Magahi Folklore and Folk Tales’, namely, The King’s Daughter Dove, The Seven Swans, and Princess Belmanti. Here, these bodily transformations from (bird to girl, swan to prince, and fruit to princess) function as a metaphor for fluid gender, rebirth and moral renewal (Verma, 2008). Hence, the paper argues that these tales locate the female body as a site where nature, morality, and divinity converge by building a composite framework that combines Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity (1990), structuralist folklore (Propp, 1968; Lévi-Strauss, 1963), ecofeminist perspectives (Merchant, 1980; Shiva, 1988), and Indian feminist scholarship (Rege, 1998; Menon, 2012; Vatsyayan, 1997). The metamorphoses illustrate the volatility of binary gender, the ceremonial evaluation of virtue, and the sacred acknowledgement of feminine agency. This is especially visible in contexts where divine entities (e.g., Parvati–Shiva) endorse transformation as restoration. The study employs close reading and motif analysis based on Propp’s functions and Lévi-Strauss’s oppositional structures. It also considers Butlerian performance and ecofeminist semiotics. The analysis reveals that: transformation disrupts fixed gender identities by presenting identity as a process of continual becoming; the woman's transformed body serves as an ethical threshold, enduring sanctions, vows, and trials that ultimately lead to social reintegration; and divine intervention reaffirms feminine virtue as sacred, resonating with Indian aesthetic interpretations of Shakti/Prakriti (Vatsyayan, 1997; Shiva, 1988). The study presents a comparative folkloristic framework that contextualises Magahi materials within the realm of global scholarship. It also emphasises indigenous theories of gender and the sacred. It elucidates how regional folk archives, when analysed through integrated theoretical frameworks, can broaden discussions on gender performativity beyond Euro-American contexts.