<p>Ulla Isaksson (1916 – 2000) wrote many novels, often with a woman or several women as protagonists. In <em>Dit du icke vill</em> (“Where Thou Willst Not”) from 1956 she depicts a crisis of faith in a woman, which would not have been successful had she chosen a contemporary setting. She uses an adequate historical framework, the prosecution of witches in Sweden in the 17^th century, well documented in reliable sources. Her novel includes a message about oppression of women, manifest in patriarchal ambition to control ancient wisdom about healing and herbs and the denial of pre-Christian habits that include knowledge about female fertility, earlier exercised by midwives and wise women and men.</p><p>In “The Root of Evil” the novel is placed in a feminist tradition, where the author, like older writers like Fredrika Bremer, Ellen Key and Elin Wägner, pleads for “social mothering”.  A major difference is that, in her own life, Ulla Isaksson has experienced pregnancy, giving birth and breastfeeding which none of the pioneering Swedish feminist writers had. Emilia Fogelklou, pioneering theologian, wrote about witches as wise women, a study that influenced Ulla Isaksson. The witches are described as mirroring Hanna “the Good Mother”. Their fantasies about life at “Blåkulla” are similar to the everyday life at a wealthy farmstead. This kind of mirroring reminds of the theories of Gilbert and Gubar, who assume that female writers in the 19^th Century hid their revolt against patriarchy in mad women, like “The Madwoman in the Attic” in Jane Eyre. In the 1950s, golden age of the Swedish housewife, a female writer might well hide her anger at the circumscribed role model dedicated to women in a similar use of Anti-Women. The real witches clearly contrast the obedient protagonist, a true “Angel in the house”.</p><p>The villagers´ struggle to clear the ground from the ensnaring roots that hinder the male prosecution of witches imply a symbolic reading: this evil root is ancient matriarchal knowledge of childbearing and birth control. A theory on the original causes for the witch hunts in western Europe is introduced: the population sank in the 15^th century and one reason, beside plagues, starvation and warfare, was that women aware of how to prevent childbearing and giving birth to a lot of children were killed during the witch hunt. Churches and kings introduced the prosecution of witches and wise women, including midwives.</p>

Ulla Isaksson (1916 – 2000) wrote many novels, often with a woman or several women as protagonists. In Dit du icke vill (“Where Thou Willst Not”) from 1956 she depicts a crisis of faith in a woman, which would not have been successful had she chosen a contemporary setting. She uses an adequate historical framework, the prosecution of witches in Sweden in the 17th century, well documented in reliable sources. Her novel includes a message about oppression of women, manifest in patriarchal ambition to control ancient wisdom about healing and herbs and the denial of pre-Christian habits that include knowledge about female fertility, earlier exercised by midwives and wise women and men. In “The Root of Evil” the novel is placed in a feminist tradition, where the author, like older writers like Fredrika Bremer, Ellen Key and Elin Wägner, pleads for “social mothering”.  A major difference is that, in her own life, Ulla Isaksson has experienced pregnancy, giving birth and breastfeeding which none of the pioneering Swedish feminist writers had. Emilia Fogelklou, pioneering theologian, wrote about witches as wise women, a study that influenced Ulla Isaksson. The witches are described as mirroring Hanna “the Good Mother”. Their fantasies about life at “Blåkulla” are similar to the everyday life at a wealthy farmstead. This kind of mirroring reminds of the theories of Gilbert and Gubar, who assume that female writers in the 19th Century hid their revolt against patriarchy in mad women, like “The Madwoman in the Attic” in Jane Eyre. In the 1950s, golden age of the Swedish housewife, a female writer might well hide her anger at the circumscribed role model dedicated to women in a similar use of Anti-Women. The real witches clearly contrast the obedient protagonist, a true “Angel in the house”. The villagers´ struggle to clear the ground from the ensnaring roots that hinder the male prosecution of witches imply a symbolic reading: this evil root is ancient matriarchal knowledge of childbearing and birth control. A theory on the original causes for the witch hunts in western Europe is introduced: the population sank in the 15th century and one reason, beside plagues, starvation and warfare, was that women aware of how to prevent childbearing and giving birth to a lot of children were killed during the witch hunt. Churches and kings introduced the prosecution of witches and wise women, including midwives.

Uppsatsen är en rumslig läsning av Ulla Isakssons Kvinnohuset (1952) där romanens rumsliga aspekter och Huset som motiv undersöks med narratologiska verktyg. Romanen diskuteras också utifrån rollteori och sin ideologiska kontext i det socialdemokratiska välfärdssamhället. Romanen kretsar kring några av de kvinnor som bor i “Huset” - ett kollektivhus för självförsörjande kvinnor. Triangeldramat mellan Tryggve (en regissör med en våning på Stan), Anna (som är hans fru men bor i Huset) och Eva (en skådespelerska och Tryggves nya älskarinna) är centralt i romanen då Tryggve ordnar en lägenhet åt Eva i Huset. Studien visar att det i Kvinnohuset finns en stark sammanlänkning av rumslig, social och känslomässig ordning. De rum de olika kvinnorna tillskrivs hjälper till att definiera både dem själva och deras relationer - i romanen finns det ett tematiserat samband mellan den plats där kärleksrelationer utspelas och den karaktär dessa relationer har. Trapphuset är det främsta rummet för interaktion mellan kvinnorna och därigenom ett rum där de tydligast kämpar om att definiera situationer och upprätthålla roller och masker. Huset fungerar som en viktig organiserande princip för romanen, vilket märks på fabulaplan men också genom att narrerandet placeras i Husets lägenheter, även när de händelser som beskrivs skett på andra platser. Huset beskrivs i romanen både som ett väsen och som ett begrepp för kvinnokollektivet. Att vara bosatt i Huset är i romanen starkt förknippat med att inneha en viss erfarenhetsposition - den erfarna och svikna kvinnans. I uppsatsen undersöker jag också konstruktionen av manligt och kvinligt i relation till hem och offentliga platser. Trots att kvinnorna inte bor tillsammans med män fokuserar de flesta av kvinnorna sin längtan på män, och flera av dem får under romanen tillfälle att agera värdinnor i det egna hemmet. / This thesis is a spatial reading of the Ulla Isaksson novel Kvinnohuset (first published in 1952) where the focus is on the spatial aspects of the novel and the House as a motif. Kvinnohuset is set in 1952 and revolves around a group of women who live in a residential building for single working women, Stockholm. The main plot is a love triangle between the director Tryggve, his wife Anna and his new mistress Eva, an actress. For the analysis I use contextualization on both an internallevel and an external level and an interdisciplinary selection of theories are used – performativity theory, spatial theory, narratology. The novel is also seen in relation to the historic context of socialdemocrat twentieth century Sweden. The house is found to function as a main organizing principle of the novel. The novel is also found to be a rich example of narrative space being intertwined with the social and emotional aspects of the text. The fabula revolves around the house – from Eva moving in to Anna being brought out – and narrating is often situated within the apartments, even when the events narrated take place in the city or elsewhere. The House is referred to as a creature, sometimes at the sametime referring to the collective of women residents as a social unit. The character of The House depends on the focalizor, and therefore shifts. Individual women characters' spaces are also used tocharacterize them and their relations – to the House, the novel and the narrative universe. The interplay between rooms and human relationships are thematized in the novel – each love affair isassigned its own space. The interaction in the stairways and the connection between the collectiveand the outside male world are also found to be central for the novel. In this thesis the construction of female and male in relation to homes and public space is also explored, since the novel is set in the 1950's when the idea of the woman as a housewifepeaked in popularity. The women are found to act as hostesses in their homes, using housework as acomforting practice in difficult situations.