This essay investigates how silence is used as a way to speak about, and give presence to what cannot be named; the female homosexuality and the lesbian. The analysis consists of three texts that are reoccurring in Swedish literature research about Karin Boye, Swedish modernist, her person and writings. By using close reading as a method, I investigate how the three texts corresponds with words connected to female homosexuality, focusing on lesbianism. By placing the lesbian as the first, and not the Other, I investigate how lesbianism is present in the three texts, and how they read and use silence as a frame for talking about what cannot be named. I use queer theory as a springboard for claiming this lesbian presence. My aim with this essay is to show how lesbianism can be read even without the explicit use of certain words, and by doing so, showing how it is not just a well of loneliness.

Denna uppsats undersöker modernitetens framväxt i staden i Karin Boyes debutroman Astarte utifrån Yvonne Hirdmans teorier om genussystemet och det stereotypa genuskontraktet. Studien undersöker de manliga och kvinnliga huvudkaraktärernas olika drömmar om staden och verklighet i staden men också modernitetens konsekvenser för de karaktärer som befinner sig utanför stadsrummet. Analysen visar att kapitalismens varufiering i stadsrummet konstituerar och vidmakthåller olika stereotypa föreställningar av vad en kvinna respektive man är. Detta sker genom de återkommande bilder som förmedlas i skyltfönstren, på biograferna, i danssalongerna och i veckotidningarna som visar olika stereotyper av vad en man respektive kvinna är och bör vara. I analysen av stadens bilder applicerar jag Walter Benjamins tankar kring den dialektiska bilden och utifrån detta drar jag slutsatsen att karaktärerna försätts i en dvala som alienerar dem från verkligheten och från sin egen andliga kärna. Uppsatsen undersöker också konsekvenserna av moderniteten bortom stadens rum. Här visar analysen att Boye strategiskt väljer att skildra utsattheten hos det kvinnliga könet framför det manliga. Detta för att påvisa vilket kön det är som styr den kapitalistiska marknaden, men också för att skildra de grupper som blir allra mest utsatta i modernitetens spår, nämligen de äldre kvinnorna på landsbygden och de fattiga kvinnor och flickor som tillverkar de kläder som massproduceras till de nya städerna.

I den här uppstatsen undersöker jag temat manipulation. Jag tittar på vad det har för inverkan på berättelsers utformning samt om det finns andra teman som ofta kombineras med manipulationstemat. Min utgångspunkt är Karin Boyes Kallocain och därifrån kommer jag dra paralleller till William Shakespeares Othello och Aldous Huxleys Brave New World. Genom att vända mig till just de här två berättelserna får jag en inblick i såväl genretillhörighet som temats utveckling över tid. Uppsatsens teoretiska utgångspunkt är C.G. Jungs teori om det kollektiva omedvetna med mänskliga grundläggande urbilder som återkommer i arketyper. Resultatet är ett grundläggande händelseförlopp och en insikt om den djupare mänskliga samhörighet som berättelsernas hjältar först inte vågar tro existerar.

The aim of this essay is to explore what understandings of love are expressed in Karin Boye’s 1934 novel Crisis and how these understandings relate to the protagonist’s reevaluation of her world and life views. The essay makes use of a method of close-reading and interpretation of the novel through four analysis questions related to the essay’s aim. By focusing on three Greek definitions of love (eros, agape and philia) and the concept ‘livsåskådning’, which explains the functional aspects of world and life views, the study analyses how godly and personal love influences the protagonist’s religious beliefs. At first, the protagonist’s main goal is to submit to the Christian God and consequently she understands love as complying to the Bible’s commandments. When experiencing the personal love for a fellow female student she finds herself no longer willing to suppress her own self and her own will. Thus, the society’s Christian morals are challenged by a modern, individual-focused perspective. This leads to a personal crisis in which the protagonist’s life and world views are re-evaluated.    By desiring the fellow student, the personal eros urges the protagonist to discover the world and life through her own experience rather than trusting the flawed written word. God and his promised impartial love, agape, are discovered as exclusively focused on obedience and punishment, which leads the protagonist to declaring God’s fall. However, the analysis of the novel shows that a union of eros and a true impartial agape is possible as eros shows the way of loving the world and its creations. This result demonstrates that the novel’s understanding of love differs from most known Christians theologians, who either describe eros as formed through or as incompatible with agape. Therefore, the essay contributes with a different perspective on how godly and personal love can affect life and world views.

This essay provides a queer theoretical, non-biographic reading of Karin Boye's novel Crisis from 1934. The analysis aims to focus on how Christian faith, constituting a major part of the book, can be connected to and be read as a symbol of heteronormativity. Furthermore the analysis describes how the queer aspect in the novel reveals heteronormative and intersectional structures. The investigation is set against previous research on Boye’s literary works, and other queer theoretical texts to show how the protagonist Malin Forst’s queer desire and identity develops as opposed to authoritative voices present in her life.

My aim with this essay is to analyse how the theme of sexuality and love in two dystopian novels – We  (1924),  by Yevgeny Zamyatin and Kallocain  (1940), by Karin Boye – relate to “the modern project”, a term I use to identify a cluster of important ideas that profoundly impacted society in the first decades of the 20th century. My analysis is based on a theoretical point of view claiming that dystopian novels present a critical perspective on society, and that they deal with issues, problems and values specific to the period in which they were written. Using a comparative method, where “the modern project” works asan “Ansatzpunkt”, I explore a variety of texts studying the theme of love and sexualityin We  and Kallocain  from different perspectives. I further discuss how both novels criticize societies where some of the ideas from “the modern project” are realized in unexpected ways: the “bourgeois family” is gone and the state performs some of its duties, sexuality is reduced to biological needs and reproduction, and love relationships are seen as egotistical and irrational. Even though these societies are trying hard, they can’t stop their citizens from using love and sexuality as a means to connect to one another and build a resistance. My conclusion is that both Zamyatin and Boye most likely were inspired by the writings of Sigmund Freud, who at that time was highly influential. In this light their novels can beinterpreted as presenting the human libido (We) and insights gained through psychoanalysis (Kallocain) as defences against collectivistic totalitarian states.

This essay is about how lesbian love is being portrayed in two Swedish novels. The material consists of Karin Boye’s Crisis (1934) and Louise Boije af Gennäs’ Stars without Vertigo (1996). By using theories of heteronormativity, discourse analysis and a historical perspective, the essay aims to explain the similarities and differences in the way that lesbian love is being portrayed in these books. The results are organised through themes by using the methods close reading and comparative method.               The heteronormative discourse is ruled by norms and assumptions about normality in relation to sexuality and gender. The protagonists in both Crisis and Stars without Vertigo are in different ways being confronted with the heteronormative discourse in the Swedish society, Christianity and amongst their family and friends. In Crisis, the main character, Malin struggles to handle her non-heterosexual feelings in relation to her faith, and not to expose her emotions. In 1934 homosexuality was considered a crime in Sweden and at the same time homosexuality was looked upon as a disease, which controls how Malin looks upon her non-heterosexual feelings and keeps her from telling anyone about them. For Sophie, the main character in Stars without Vertigo the society’s values and norms are present, but the social climate for homosexuals is different in comparison to Crisis. The heteronormative discourse concerns her private life, her choice in a spouse/partner and her ability to start a family, since the homosexual community was being considered as something different from the universal heterosexuality and therefore should not have the same rights.               Although the novels where published more than 60 years apart there are some similarities in what kind of words Malin and Sophie are using about non-heterosexuality. Both women choose not to name their non-heterosexuality because any type of word or category is limiting. Thus both Malin and Sophie create their own identity through their sexuality.

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<p>This essay examines expressions of power and resistance, in relation to gender and sexuality, in Karin Boye´s novel Kallocain. I read the novel´s theme of resistance on a level of sexuality. Because differing sexualities and genderpractises are often hidden within the heteronormative mechanisms of oppression, I focus my reading on the meaning of the room and the eye. With theories of Michel Foucault and queer theories, I show how the novel´s rooms in both a material and an immaterial way demarcate based on heteronoramative structures. Further I use the theoretical tools of Foucault and show how looks become the gatekeepers of normativity. I investigate how Judith Butler’s theory on how gender is performatively constructed take shape in the novel and how there can be queer leakage, for example in the potentially homoerotic relation between the two main male characters. I will argue that the heteronormative novelworld of Kallocain contains an emancipating potential in the rooms for resistance created both through the spirit of community in the “fools community” and in other relations, foremost the one between the main male character and the female who is married to him.</p>

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