Spectral Dissent: Rakkhosi, Petni and the Ghostly Women of Bengali Folklore as Resistance to Patriarchal Silencing

Folklore is often dismissed as entertainment or superstition, yet in Bengal’s cultural landscape it functions as a profound archive of dissent. This paper explores how figures such as the rakkhosi (female ogre), petni (female ghost), and other spectral women in Bengali oral traditions embody resistance against patriarchal silencing. Far from being mere monsters, these figures articulate suppressed voices, invert normative ideals of femininity, and preserve communal memory of injustice. By situating these narratives within the framework of resistance studies, the paper argues that Bengali folklore encodes subaltern agency in symbolic, performative, and psychological forms. The rakkhosi represents rebellion through excess. Her voracious appetite, immense strength, and terrifying presence invert patriarchal ideals of docility, beauty, and obedience. In tales such as Lalkamal Neelkamal, rakkhosi queens devour humans and threaten kings, embodying women who refuse containment. Their monstrousness is not simply a moral warning but a critique of the demand that women suppress desire and remain passive. The petni, by contrast, resists through haunting. Often portrayed as women who died unjustly—through betrayal, abuse, or neglect—petnis refuse erasure by returning as spectral presences. Ghostly women such as the shakchunni further critique patriarchal structures by turning symbols of oppression into instruments of resistance. Bound to marital ornaments even after death, the shakchunni embodies the suffocating reduction of women to marital status. Yet her spectral presence transforms bangles and vermilion into haunting tools, unsettling the very institutions that silenced her. Equally significant is the communal act of storytelling. Ghost tales told in courtyards and women’s gatherings allowed suppressed voices to circulate in coded form. Folklore thus functioned as a safe space for articulating anxieties about marriage, violence, and gendered oppression. The act of remembering and retelling these stories is itself a rebellion against forgetting, ensuring that women’s dissent remains alive in cultural memory. The figures of rakkhosi, petni, and shakchunni embody dissent against patriarchal silencing, transforming monstrosity and haunting into metaphors of agency. By analyzing these narratives, the paper highlights how folklore preserves suppressed voices, critiques gendered oppression, and destabilizes categories of control. Resistance studies emphasizes everyday practices of dissent, and Bengali folklore exemplifies this through communal storytelling, symbolic inversion, and cultural memory. In reclaiming folklore as a site of resistance, the paper expands the scope of resistance studies to include spectral and mythic voices that challenge silencing across generations.