agrell b 2011_aesthetic offence working class

8/6/2019 Agrell B 2011_Aesthetic Offence Working Class

1/16

B E A T A A G R E L L

Aesthetic Experience as Offence

in E arly Swedish Working-Class Narrative

This paper deals with the phenomenon of aesthetic experience as effected in

Swedish working-class prose of the early 1900s; and my focus will be on a

crime motif within this field, namely murder. By way of two examples I will

elucidate a narrative technique that presents the criminal from within his own

perspective, at the same time as the narrator is speaking. This means that, in one

and yet

socalled narratedmonologue or erlebte Rede is freqeuent in the modernnovel ever since Flaubert;1 but my examples will demonstrate how the tech-

nique is used as a textual strategy that combines Sentimentality and Grue-

someness in one and the same passage; and I will reflect on how this in-

tertwining may affect the crime motif and the attitude of the implied reader.2

The chosen examples are taken from the works of Maria Sandel and Dan An-

dersson, working-class authors of the second decade of the 1900s. The reason

for this choice is that working-class fiction, written from a proletarian point ofview, was a new kind of literature that gave way to low, indecent and gruesome

motifs, not only from within the sites of heavy bodily work in factories, char-

coal stacks, and sawmills, but also from the predicament of the unemployed, the

Lumpenproletariat and the criminality that often grew out of those poor con-

ditions. Because of the underdog point of view, the narrative attitude tends to a

certain ambivalence: on the one hand the criminal act is blamed; but on the

criminal hero is depicted as an understandable human being, however gruesome

his (or her!) crime. Thereby it is implicated that, as a human being, even the

criminal is worthy of empathy, compassion, and mercy. At this point a delicatebalance is required: the narrative position may be on the verge of collapsing into

1 See COHN: TransparentMinds, p. 99-140.2 See ISER: The Act of Reading, p. 34: The concept of the implied reader is therefore atextual structure anticipating the presence of a recipient without necessarily defininghim: this concept prestructures the role to be assumed by each recipient, and this holdstrue even when texts deliberately appear to ignore their possible recipient or actively ex-clude him. Thus the concept of the implied reader designates a network of response-inviting structures, which impel the reader to grasp the text.

In: Wennerscheid, Sophie (ed.): Sentimentalitt und Grausamkeit.

Emotion und sthetische Erfahrung in der skandinavischen und

deutschen Literatur der Moderne. Mnster: LIT Verlag 2011,s. 212227

[Korrekturversion]


2/16

Aesthetic Experience as Offence 93

authorial sentimentality, and yet a purely intermediary role giving way to the

is the most effective. To this narrative dilemma

the technique of narrated monologue is the solution, and part of my task here is

to discuss how Dan Andersson and Maria Sandel make use of it.

I Thesocio-culturalcontext

In the early 1900s the many processes of modernisation reached their peak, such

as: industrialization, urbanization, proletarization, secularization, democratiza-

tion, commercialization, and massmedialization. The transformations involved

changed the class-structure and caused new needs, new ways of life, new iden-

tities, and not leastnew literatures. As a result of the democratization of the

parnasse3 not only the new working class fiction emerged, but also a new

bourgeois realist novel: it dealt with commercial life, business, bankruptcy,

swindle, and other materialistic items, pertaining to the current situation of the

rapidly expanding but also materially vulnerable bourgeoisie.4 These new

literatures were but two sides of the same coin, the modern capitalist society.

Thus, the old agrarian Sweden was rapidly transforming into a modern indus-

trial society;5 and because industrialization needed centralized working-sites

preferrably in big factories urbanization was the result.6 This meant prole-

tarization of the small farmers and crofters in the countryside; it also meant un-

employment among the already proletarianized farm workers. In short, old-

fashioned cultivation techniques, bad yields, and overpopulation, forced rural

people to move into the cities, so as to work in the factories for a living. This is

factory-workers and their families, especially the women.

3 See THORELL: Den svenska parnassens demokratisering.4 See e.g. SUNDSTRM:Martin Koch, p. 8-15.5 The number of people employed in Swedish industry increased from 25.808 in 1858 to238.181 in 1896-1900, and in 1912 to 310.437 (Bidrag til Sveriges Officiella Statistik,

p. 14, and Statistisk rsbok fr Sverige 1914, p. 66. The total population in 1850 was3.482.541 persons, and in 1912 as many as 5.604.192 (Statistisk rsbok fr Sverige1914, p. 3).6 In 1850 the total population was 3.482.541 people, whereof 9% lived in the cities; in1912 the total population had increased to 5.604.192 people, whereof 26% lived in thecities (Statistisk rsbok fr Sverige 1914, p. 3).


3/16

94 BEATA AGRELL

However, moving into the cities was not the only solution for a poor manual

worker those days. Quite a few of them emigrated, mostly to the USA.7

Others

chose the ambulant way of seasonal employment: they went into forest work,

timber floating, saw mills, charcoal mining, and railway work, moving from site

to site as employment was offered. Still others managed to remain in distant

woodlands seemingly unaffected by Modernity, but in fact slowly submitted

workboth his poetry and his narrative.

The necessity to survive in these new circumstances, adjusted to urbanization

and the capitalist market, caused a rapid change of mentality, but not always forthe better: starvation wages and massive unemployment forced many workers

male or female into criminality, prostitution, and infanticide. Others suc-

cumbed to tuberculosis, deficiency diseases, or accidents at the working sites.

Among women, the after-effects of the abuse battering of women and illegal

abortion were frequent. To all this the new working-class fiction of the time

bears ample testimony, as can be seen in for instance Martin Koch and Gustav

Hedenvind-Eriksson the two gateposts of Swedish working-class fiction

as well as in Dan Andersson and Maria Sandel.

Crime motifs were in fact frequent in all kinds of literature those days. The in-

terest in criminality was inherited from the school of naturalism of the late1800s, but it was updated with contemporary research in criminal psychology

and psychoanalysis. The forensic psychologist Andreas Bjerre published books

and articles on criminal mentality, based on interviews with thieves and mur-

derers in prison;8 he even was the adviser of authors dealing with crime motifs,

among others Martin Koch, a friend and collegue of Dan Andersson.9

The inte-

rest in crime fiction was also met by the new massmedial publishing industries

newspaper serials, booklets, and cheap editions with best-selling titles, for

instance with the detective Nick Carter as the hero. In the years around 1907 to

7 In the years 1901-1912 the emigrants from Sweden were 295.781 people (Statistiskrsbok fr Sverige 1914, p. 41), i.e. more people than any Swedish city except Stock-holm held by that time (Stockholm had 350.955 inhabitants) (Statistisk rsbok frSverige 1914, p. 7). For emigration and Swedish literature see further WENDELIUS: Bil-den av Amerika i svensk prosaktion 1890-1914.8 BJERRE: Bidrag till mordets psykologi: kriminalpsykologiska studier.9 See ENGBLOM: Martin Kochs roman Guds vackra vrld, pp. 57-69.


4/16


1909 this hero and his shabby surroundings caused a virtual moral panic,10

en-

rolling the whole cultural establishment of Sweden in a fight against the so-

called dirt y literature. Since those books were cheap even the poor workingclass families could afford to buy and worse! read them. Criminality was

seen as an innate trait of the growing working-class that was now dangerously

organizing itself in illegal strikes and trade unions, threatening with socialism,

revolution and the like.11

Most frightening were the general strikes in 1902 and

1909 that paralysed the nation and manifested the power of a united working-

class. The Nick Carter-literature would encourage these evil tendencies, and so

the dirty literature and the working-class were made interacting scape-goats in a

time of great anxiety and confusion.12

II

story collection Hexdansen[TheWitch Dance] (1919). Here the reading processis complicated by fundamental ambivalences in the narrative stance, encom-

passing the whole ethical (and unethical) scale. The stories deal with the deepest

Guds vackra vrld[s Beautiful World] (1916), the characters are chosenfrom the unemployed or the lowly proletariat, and the petty criminals that these

socially outcast positions both generate and are generated from. Among these

nduce illegal abortion or even

commit infanticide a typical situation of many working-class women, inclu-

ding the married ones.

The long title story Hexdansen deals with the miserable fortunes of a family

Down- an unemployed alcoholic, and

10 Nr Nick Carter drevs p flykten deals with this campaign with reference to what

the British sociologist Stanley Cohen has called am

oral panic

that is trigged by anexaggerated and perverted massmedia description of the spark that set it all off. In Co-hens interactive perspective the social deviation is the result of the social measuresagainst it, rather than the cause of those measures. See BOTHIUS: Nr Nick Carterdrevs p flykten, p. 129f.11 Bothius emphasizes that the increasing fear of the entire working class was the mostimportant driving force behind the conservative fight against the dirt: they feared thatthe Nick Carter-literature would increase the alleged crudity and lawlessness among theworkers as well as their interest in the Socialist agitation, which was the dirtiest-ginable. See BOTHIUS: Nr Nick Carter drevs p flykten, p. 251.12 BOTHIUS: Nr Nick Carter drevs p flykten, p. 247f.


5/16

96 BEATA AGRELL

the mother Ida a worn-out housewife, cleaning woman and servant of her un-

grateful and lazy family. The five surviving children Helge, Gotthard, Brita,

Alice and Lillystep into their careers respectively as a thief, a pimp, a prosti-

tute, a suicide, and an infanticide respectively. As a family they are kept toge-

ther only out of necessity, not of love or sympathy; and however strong their

class-consciousness, the ethics of class-solidarity is totally missing. On the con-

trary, they despise their conscientious class-mates as much as the capitalist

usurpers, and their only wish is to get into the position of usurpers themselves.

The only exception to this bottomless asociality is the daughter Alice, who tries

to keep the few jobs she is given, but always fails, significantly enough becauseshe is prudent, shy, and weak. Since her family only scorns her failures, she is

remarkable.

s stance at first is quite explicitly condemnatory: the first chapter,

presenting the Nerman family, is entitled Ogrs [Weed], and a summary of

the conditions reads like this:

Det var ofta ont om mat hos familjen, men alltid verfld p vgg-lss, stridigheter, pantsedlar och uppdragna lkorkar. Ej heller plump brukade det vara brist, ty avlagda klder sknktes rikligen av

dem, som anvnde fru Nerman till hjlp.[The family often was short of food, but bedbugs, fights, pawntickets and pulled-up beer corks were abundant. Neither were theyusually short of rags, because cast-off clothes were plentifully do-nated by people using Mrs Nerman as a helper.] (p.10)

This working-class family does not live up to the current concept of sktsamhet[conscientiousness], so essential to the efforts of the labour movement to

change the bourgeois apprehension of the working class as a barbarous crowd.13

judge, eager to separate good from evil; but on the other hand, as a narrator she

gradually seems to share the perspective of the character she is criticizing. Thismeans that the moral limits she tries to draw are continually blurred or at least

problematized; and thus even an explicitly uttered moral sentence will somehow

be suspended.14

13 See BOTHIUS: Nr Nick Carter drevs p flykten, pp. 127, 261-264, 265, 268-270.14 other scholars, most importantly by Forselius, discussing sexual morality; see e.g.


6/16


The problematization of moral limits is especially challenging in the depiction

of how the Nerman daughter Lilly strangles her newborn baby. On the one

hand, this is the culmination of the narrative of the growth of an evil person

Lilly is set forth as a deterrent example. On the other hand, the internal focali-

-

tive. The narrator, in her own voice, clearly condemns Lilly. Already as a child

she is said to betray an evil character: Lilly var en rosenkindad lva, vars tro-

hjrtade himmelsbl blick ej frrdde ett grand av all den orenlighet som hennes

redan tidigt frgiftade barnasjl dolde. [Lilly was a rosy-cheeked fairy, whose

true-hearted sky-blue eyes did not betray a trifle of all the filth that her alreadypoisoned child-soul disguised] (p. 17). As a young woman Lilly is only inte-

rested in entertainment, her looks, and climbing the social ladder through a

class-crossing marriage. This is a dream of a worldly salvation from the hell of

working-class life, but it is also an ambition that makes her ruthless. When it

collides with her hectic life of pleasure, she always finds a way out by lying and

stealing. When finally she finds a proper man to marry, thus beginning to

realize her class-journey, she also discovers that she is pregnant with another

-

ever he may be, he would neither acknowledge his paternity nor help her in any

way (p. 70). So she hides her pregnancypainfully aided by stays and corsets and prepares for a secret delivery in a cellar. When the labour starts, she con-

trols herself, pleads an important invitation, gathers the prepared things, sneaks

away to the cellar, lies down among rats in the mud, and gives birth to the child.

She strangles the baby, falls asleep, wakes up, leaves the cellar and continues

her life just as it was before.

This is roughly the story, and as such it is quite unambiguous as for the moral

message: this woman is destined for evil, even considered the tough circum-

mind and displays her perverted modes of thought as quite sensible and even

Prnget, dr hon slutligen stannade, var s smalt, att hennes ut-sprrade knn nstan berrde vggarna. Hon slngde av sig ytter-klderna och drp fast tv ljus vid var sin stenskrva p markenframfr sig. De gula lgorna lyste stilla under hennes perioder av

FORSELIUS: Upptcktsresan, pp. 97f., 101. My contribution is to extend that observationto the moral field as a whole. Cf. the Sandel-analysis in A GRELL: In Search of Legi-timacy.


7/16

98 BEATA AGRELL

utmattning, men fladdrade som vid dans kring gran, d marternariste hennes krop

Halvt ifrn sig av plgor och ngslan hon hade aldrig frestlltsig saken s svr mrkte hon ej, att det ena ljuset slocknade. Kortefter slt sig gravmrker om henne, och ofrberedd blev hon vildav ddsfruktan. Hon strtade upp. Ut! Vad som hlst blott ickefrgs hr under jorden, i ensamhet. Tumlande omkring sig, skra-

pade hon huden av sina hnder mot de vldiga, fuktdrypande sten-blocken, trarna strmmade och hon blade till himlen om hjlp.verallt murar, var fanns utgnge Men ter mste hon ned p

marken, ansatt av vrkarna. Hon vltrade sig, och nu tiggde honicke lngre om vernaturligt bistnd utan ropade frtvivlat: Mamma,

Det lt som om hundar skllt ini kllargngen, nr ekot svarade.

[The nook where she finally stayed was so narrow that her spread-out knees almost touched the walls. She threw off her outdoorclothes and fastened two dripping candles on one stone chip eachin front of her. The yellow flames quietly shone during her periodsof exhaustion, but flickered as when dancing around a Christmas

Half frantic with torment and anguishshe had never imagined the

matter to be so difficult she did not notice that one of the candleswent out. Shortly thereafter, the darkness of the grave closed herin, and being unprepared she went wild with a fear of death. Shelunged to her feet. Out! Anything but to perish underground inloneliness. Collapsing, she grazed the skin off her hands against thehuge, damp stone blocks, her tears streaming, and she howled toheaven for help. Everywhere, ledges But again she was forced down to the ground, assailed by labour

pains. She rolled about and, no longer begging for supernatural

It sounded like dogs barking in the cellar gallery, when the echo

answered.] (p. 88)As can be seen, the narrator here switches to erlebteRede, which means that thereader is confronted with the scene from within the character, although the nar-

rator is speaking.15 However evil Lilly is otherwise depicted, this time her fear,

anguish and pain are focused upon

15 See COHN: Transparent Minds, p. 100.


8/16


16

This is because there is no other position in the text

prepared for the reader. Pure observation is thus made impossible; instead the

narrative gives way to fear and pity in fact, the Aristotelian virtues of a well-

made tragedy.

the murder:

Gud, ngot att hlla fast vid ! Hennes fingrar borrade sig i markensmodd. Skrande jmmer. Sist ett lngdraget tjut, som uppslukadesav mrkret och utspyddes i gapen runtom. Ett gonblick och den

nyfdde hlsade livet med friska lungors styrk De sm lgorna,som nyss hotat att slockna fr kvalens kastbyar, tindrade nu milt pett litet huvud med hr som en krans av svart dun kring nacken.

Lillys utmattning vervanns snabbt av hennes jrnvilja. Saxe , den fanns inte hon trevade med sklvande hnder i vskan, i

paketet, omkring sig. Frgves. En glasskrva d, vad som helstskarp Stickor, rutten potatis, trassel, men ngot fr ndamletdugligt nej. D anvnde hon samma medel som djuren tnderna.

En domning smg sig ter ver henne, hon gav vika, strckte utsig, men den nyfddes skrik rev upp henne. Och hatet krkte

hennes fingrar om barnets strupe, pressade dem kvvande tungtver den lilla sklvande munnen.

Kort efter slocknade ljusen nedbrunna. D lg den nyblivnamodern frsnkt i lugn, strkande smn.

16 Man sger sig:Hon var ett skarn, en dlig kvinna p alla vis. Hon ddade sitt barn. Hon knde ingasamvetskval, ingen tvekan, och dock ryser man av medlidande med flickan, som i sinomedvetna ondska hur kunde hon vara annat n ond med den far hon hade och den

uppfostran hon ftt? r s orimligt tapper? Som biter samman tnderna av kvalen ochmissrkningarna och gr sin vg fram hnsynsls, utan knsla och vekhet, med otroligmlmedvetenhet och kraft. Hon r briljant skildrad den onda, som ej vet om sinondska. [You tell yourself: She was a shame, a bad woman in all respects. She killedher child. She felt no qualms of conscience, no hesitation, and yet you shudder withcompassion for this girl, who in her unconscious wickedness how could she be butwicked with such a father and such an education? is so unreasonably brave?Clenching her teeth with suffering and disappointment, ruthlessly going her own way,no emotion or weakness, in unbelievable purposefulness and power. She is brilliantlydepicted the wicked one who does not know her wickedness.] (BERG: MariaSandel.)


9/16

100 BEATA AGRELL

[Oh God, something to keep hold on! Her fingers burrowed intothe mud of the ground. Piercing groaning. Finally a protractedhowl that was engulfed by the darkness and spewed into the gapsaround. A moment, and the newborn child greeted life with the full threatening to go out for the gusts of torment, now were twinklingon a little head with hairs like a garland of black down around itsneck she groped withshivering hands in her purse, in the package, around her. In vain. A

cotton waste, but something suitable to its purpose no. Then sheused the same means as the animals her teeth.

A numbness stole upon her, she yielded, stretched out, but the new- -focating, over its little shivering mouth.

Shortly afterwards, the burnt-down candles went out. By then therecent mother had sunk into a calm, strengthening sleep.] (p. 89f.)

In these passages the focalization shifts between extra and intradiegetic posi-

desperate efforts to manage, are

depicted from within at the same time as the narrator comments upon themfrom without, from the perspectives of the child and the moral society. The

harshest condemnation is implied in the analogy of the mother with an animal.

Yet this is what it all is about, deep down at the bottom of fleshly existence,

where survival of the fittest is the one and only law. From that point of view,

the moral law seems an extravagance for the happy few. Certainly, this is part

of the irony alluded to in the title of this chapter: Det heliga moderskapet

[The Holy Motherhood]. And this very irony as well as the moral ambigu-

ity of the narrative as a wholewas offensive then, as it probably still is.

The story is gruesome, as is the narrative; and the textual strategy is didactic,

exemplary, and deterrent. Yet there is room not only for fear but also compas-

sion, that is, a somewhat Aristotelian katharsis is prepared, as in an exemplary

tragedy17

only this heroine is not a character better than in actual life, but

worse. In spite of her low social position she is not depicted as comic which

17 The task of the tragedy is to create a purification of emotion, that is through pity andfear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions (ARISTOTLE: On the Art of Poe-try, ch. VI.)


10/16


was the Aristotelian (and Classicist) rule for low characters. Neither is she typi-

fied as a monster: she is depicted as an evil and narrative here is gruesome and emotionally loaded, but it leaves no room for

sloppy sentimentality.

II I-narrative

but also impartial and even matter-of-fact; and so are also the murder-narratives

that I will dwell upon here. In 1913, before he had even published a book, he

wrote two short stories, based on an authentic murder case in his home province

-

den.18 In June 1913 a widow was shot and then raped by a shoemaker of the

village, also a previous convict and outcast. The gruesome drama was widely

exposed in the local newspaper. The hunt for the murderer was followed day by

day, like a serial story with cliff hangers and all. Thus, the newspaper reports

were transformed into some Nick Carter-literature for real, or as a reality game.

Dan Andersson himself took part in this game by writing a story on the theme,

reusing the facts and details of the newspaper, and finally publishing the story

in the same newspaper that he had plundered.

19

Yet, his story was not of thesame kind as the non-fiction newspaper-articles, and so his participating in the

game turned into a critical dialog. The narrator depicts the murder and the

necrofilian rape in all the gruesome details; but his project is not to judge the

murderer, but to understandhim and to render him understandable.The title of the newspaper story was Ddsjakten [The Death Hunt], but that

name was a redactional change; the manuscript reads Ddsdansen [The

Dance of Death], and this difference is significant. The dance-title alludes not

only to the well-known clich of the dansemacabre with Death, but also to thefact that the murdererJohan was a much sought after fiddler, like Dan An-

dersson himself, and the core figure of his poetry and fiction. Although Johan isa despised outcast his capacity as a fiddler brings him into social events like

family feasts and Saturday dances; but even then he is scorned and treated like

18 These woods were called finnish because in the 16th century they were offered aspotentially cultivable to the poor peasants living in Finland, at that time a Swedish pro-vince; and so a great number of finns emigrated to the northwest of Dalarna, and also toVrmland. Dan Anderssons own ancestors were such emigrants. See UHLIN: DanAndersson, chapter I.19 ANDERSSON: Ddsjakten.


11/16

102 BEATA AGRELL

trash. Men han talade sllan, the narrator says, skte aldrig frsvara sig med

ord mot deras ofrskmdheter. Tyst och sluten gned han sin fiol, tyst och sluten

gick han sin vg nr dansgillet slutade [But he seldom spoke and he did not

try to defend himself in words against their insults. Silent and reserved he

scraped his fiddle, silent and reserved he went his way when the dance feast was

over] (p. 212).

suited for channelling his burning passions, threatening to burst from his inside:

han var galen i kvinnor [he was crazy about women], the narrator informs

us, but alla kvinnor skydde honom som pesten [all women shun him like the plague], not the least because of the rumours describing him as a sexually

perverted (p. 212). Sexuality in fact was his main problem, according to thenarrator, but fundamentally there was nothing perverted about it: sexuality for

Johan was a serious passion, and therefore he could not understand theambigous social conventions associated with sexual behaviour. He was unable

to play these games of flirting and provoking sexual urges that were not to be

fulfilled. So when he realized that a girl he wanted hade lekt med honom och

med den helvetets brand, som brnde i hans inre [had played with him and

the hellish fire burning him from within] (p. 213) he turned violent, and even

murderous.Ts voluntary death as he puts himself in the

way of the train rather than being captured. But in the real world the story was

open-ended: the real murderer was never found; he just disappeared. This fact is

incorporated in Daunpublished version of the story,

named Kvinnohat [Hatred of Women], almost contemporaneous with

Ddsdansen. But the context of publication is not a newspaper but a short

story collection refused and only posthumously published. The manuscript

was ambigously named Sorgmarschen [The Funeral March, The March of

Sorrow, or of Grieving, or Mourning]. Because of the more generous

context of a book, Kvinnohat expands the motives of fiddling and passion,

and this time the narrative starts in a rural dance party, although den rtta

spelmannen [the proper fiddler] (p. 61) has not arrived. The wanted fiddler

of course is Johan, but at his arrival he refuses to play; he has not even brought

his fiddle. Instead he hides in a dark corner where he cannot be seen, but he

himself can see what is going on on the dance floor. And he studies the sexual

game:


12/16


[hur] de ungdomliga, fylliga och bjde och strckte sig med elastiska, spnstiga rrelser, hur deeldigt lto sig tryckas mot breda gossebrst i vita skjortveck, huransiktena blossade och hur de lto sig kyssas mitt under dansen,

bara man kom bort till det mrkaste hrnet

and stretched with elastic and vigorous movements, how ardentlythey let themselves be pressed against the broad breasts with tucksthey let themselves be kissed in the middle of the dance, if only

they would reach the darkest corner] (p. 63)Sexuality is the secret undercurrent of the dance; everybody knows that, but no-

one admits it; and that double standard of morality Johan cannot understand.

The girls are afraid of his silence they felt hans fullstndigt djuriska natur

[his entirely animal nature (p. 63), the narrator tells us. But Johan himself

observes the same nature in all the dancers; the only difference is that his own

inability of conventional flirtation betrays the instincts that the others manage to

-

elakhet att de undveko honom. [all human beings are wanton, but women in

particular, and their avoiding him was nothing but meanness] (p. 66). At this

make the man in the murderer understandable:

Nr han tnkte ver detta frsvann all lust fr rligt arbete. Hanhade ju ingen att leva frvarfr skulle han d arbeta? Kanske omhan sjlv ftt leva livet fullt vid en kvinnas sida, kanske han darbetat ocks. Som det nu var kunde han ej ens sga att han hadesig sjlv att leva och arbeta fr, ty sitt eget liv levde han ju bara tillhlften, och det ouppfyllda frstrde hans liv och drmmar,suddade ut allt det bsta inom honom och gjorde av den fordigemannen en lat lymmel, vars hela tankeverksamhet koncentreradesig p kvinnor. Och under allt detta brann hatet med riklig gld,kom lusten till handling att kmpa en frtvivlad strid mot frnuftetoch brnde aska av hans inre.

[When he thought about all this all his bent for honest work disappeared. He had no-one to live forwhy, then, should he work?Perhaps, if he had been allowed to live out his life with a woman athis side, he might have worked. But in his present situation he didnot even have himself to live and work for, for he lived his own


13/16

104 BEATA AGRELL

life only by halves, and the unfulfilled part destroyed his life andhis dreams; it erased what was good in him and rendered the taci-turn man a lazy rascal, whose entire mental activity concentratedon women. And underneath hatred was burning with an abundantglow; it induced his bent for action to a desperate struggle againsthis reason, and it burned his inner man to ashes.] (p. 67)

His needs are as emotional as physical, but he does not know any difference be-

tween passions. The narrator rightly depicts his physical need with a compas-

sion that otherwise is reserved for the purely spiritual sufferings of morehonorable heroes:

Inte ens i drmmen fick han ngon hel frnimmelse, ty hanvaknade alltid innan han ftt akten fullbordad. D brukade hanspringa upp och g av och an p golvet i stum frtvivlan, fr att insta minut kasta sig ned framstupa ver bdden och i frtvivladkvinnohunger rycka och slita i tcket, liksom vore detta en varelsesom orsakat hans smrta.

[Not even in his dreams was he given a full satisfaction, for he al-ways woke up before the act was fulfilled. Then he would get up,walking back and forth over the floor in mute despair, but in thenext moment he would throw himself headlong down onto his bed,

and in his desperate hunger for women he would pull and tear thequilt as if it was a creature that had caused his pain.] (p.75)

When finally the murder is committed, and the murderer drags the body into the

woods, the scene is depicted in all gruesome detail; and now the narrative is

ruthless:

Utan att ge sig tid att se efter om hon levde kastade han sig, likt enschakal, ver den blodiga kroppen och pressade sin egen kroppmot den. Nr han steg upp sg han, att han vldfrt sig mot ett lik,och d sprang han drifrn med gevret nnu i handen och medklderna rda av Lisas blod.

[Without giving himself the time to find out if she was alive he fellupon her bloodstained body like a jackal, pressing his own bodyagainst it. When he rose he saw that he had raped a corpse, andthen he run away, his gun in his hand and his clothes red from

The murderer Johan was never caught, and the closing section of the narrative

speculates on his unknown destiny. Perhaps would he give himself up later on?

That would cost him his life as a free man. But how free had he been? Had he


14/16


not been enslaved by passions that had made his free life a torment? Such un-

Men kanske han sover p bottnen av en enslig skogstjrn, med desvala vgorna till tcke bland nckrosstnglar och rrvass, med avddens kyla slckta passioner och slocknad lust. Och ingen vet vadsom r bst.

[But maybe he is asleep on the bottom of a lonely woodland mere,the cool waves his cover among water lilies and reed, his passionsextinguished by the chill of death, and his urge turned off. And no-

body knows what is the best.] (p. 80)

How is this passage to be characterized? Empathic? Compassionate? Or senti-

is this emotional interaction between the narrator and his hero, displayed before

the reader: the narrator creates his character by narrating him, but he is also

affected by his creation.20 The figure of the narrator is created as well, namely

by the author. But the author also creates the textual strategies that pave the way

for the reader and a complex aesthetic experience. These strategies make possi-

ble the emotional address of the text: gruesomeness and sentimentality, fear and

pitymaybe transformed into a meditation on loving your neighbour.

20 Cf. the dialogicity between author/narrator and hero described in BAKHTIN: Problems, chapter 2.


15/16

106 BEATA AGRELL

Bibliography

AGRELL, Beata: In Search of Legitimacy. Class, Gender and Moral Discipline

in Early Swedish Working-Class literature c. 1910, in: Constance Gestrich u.

Thomas Mohnike (Hg.): Faszination des Il legitimen. Alteritt in Konstruktionenvon Genealogie, Herkunft und Ursprnglichkeit in den skandinavischen Lite-raturenseit1800, Wrzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2007, p.103-117.

ANDERSSON, Dan: Ddsdansen, in: Gsta gren (Hg.): Samladeskrifter, 7,Amerikanska berttelser, Enskilda noveller 1912-17, Stockholm: Tiden, 1978,

p. 211-223.ANDERSSON, Dan: Ddsjakten, in: Falu-Kuriren, July 11, 1913.

ANDERSSON, Dan: Kvinnohat, in: Gsta gren (Hg.): Samlade skrifter, 5,Kolarhistorier,Sorgmarschen, Stockholm: Tiden, 1978, p. 61-80.

ARISTOTLE: On the Art of Poetry, in: Classical Literary Criticism, Har-mondsworth/Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970, p. 29-75.

BAKHTIN, Michail M.: , Manchester: Man-

chester University Press, 1984.

Bidrag til l Sveriges Officiell a Statistik,

D),

Fabriker och Manufakturer,Commerci Collegii underdniga berttelse fr r 1858, Stockholm: P.

A.Norstedt & sner, 1859-1912, http://www.scb.se/Pages/List____257389.aspx,

access 2010-04-02.

BJERRE, Andreas: Bidragtil lmordets psykologi: kriminalpsykologiska studier,Stockholm: Norstedt, 1925.

BOTHIUS, Ulf: Nr Nick Carter drevs p flykten. Kampen mot smuts-litteraturen iSverige1908-1909, Stockholm: Gidlund, 1989.

COHN, Dorrit: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction,(1978), Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983.

ENGBLOM, Jerker: Martin Kochs Guds vackra vrld. Martin Koch-sllskapetsrsbok 1992, Diss. Uppsala/Stockholm: Sober, 1991.

FORSELIUS, Tilda Maria: Upptcktsresan i vardagens landskap. Om Maria

Sandel, in: Ingrid Holmquist u. Ebba Witt-Brattstrm (Hg.): Kvinnornaslitteraturhistoria. Del 2/1900-talet, Stockholm: Frfattarfrlaget, 1983, pp. 89-105.


16/16


ISER, Wolfgang: The Act ofReading. A Theory of Aesthetic Response, Balti-more/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.

SANDEL, Maria: Hexdansen, Stockholm: Tiden, 1919.

Statistisk rsbok fr Sverige 1914. Stockholm: Statistiska centralbyrn, 1914,Sveriges officiella statistik, vol. 1,http://www.scb.se/Pages/List____283991.asp

x, access 2010-11-28.

SUNDSTRM, Erland: Radikal ism och religiositet. En studie av tidsattit yd ochidbakgrund i Martin Kochsdiktning, Stockholm: Gummessons, 1961.

THORSELL

folkliga bildningsvgarna, in: Samlaren1957, p. 53-135.

UHLIN, Eric: Dan Andersson fre Svarta ballader. Liv och diktning fram til l1916, Stockholm: Tiden, 1950.

WENDELIUS, Lars: Bilden av Amerika isvensk prosaktion 1890-1914, Skrifterutgivna av Litteraturvetenskapliga institutionen vid Uppsala universitet, 16,

diss. Motala/Uppsala: AB Lundequistska bokhandeln, 1982.

BERG, Linda: Maria Sandel, in: Social-Demokraten, Feb. 25, 1922.

agrell b 2011_aesthetic offence working class

Documents