Denna uppsats undersöker spänningen mellan frihet och trygghet respektive ensamhet och gemenskap som typiskt moderna erfarenheter i Therese Bohmans samtidsroman Aftonland (2016). Studien syftar till att relatera dessa teman till viss kritik av det moderna samhället genom sociologiska teorier om modernitet och individualism. Tillvägagångssättet för studien är en litteraturvetenskaplig analys med en hermeneutisk forskningsansats. De slutsatser som kan dras utifrån studiens resultat är att spänningen mellan frihet och trygghet kan kopplas till ensamhet, såväl självvald som ofrivillig. Det moderna samhällets frihetsbetoning och individers identitetsskapande som skildras i Aftonland kan resultera i en upplevelse av otrygghet och oro som kan härledas tillbaka till sökandet efter balans mellan frihet och trygghet. I detta resultat kan också en kritisk diskussion om individualism och frihet som moderna erfarenheter anas.

This thesis is a study of femininity and womanhood in two Swedish contemporary novels by Ulla Bjerne, Ingen mans kvinna (No Man’s Woman) from 1919 and Lilla Jälm (Young Jälm) from 1922. By comparing the novels, I study differences and similarities between the genres children’s literature and adult literature based on an analysis of the themes friendship, home, work, body and sexuality. The period during which the novels were released are by previous research called a period of transition. Swedish women had just achieved legal right to vote aswell as extended opportunities of work. In Swedish interwar representations of the New woman figure. She breaks normative rules in both real life and literature. However, the normative way of being a woman according to traditional constructions remains. By using Yvonne Hirdman’s theory of the gender system and research about contemporary discussions I study how the author chose to produce and relate to the normative femininity and womanhood, and how the characters relate to these normative views and the formations of the New Woman. Both main characters pushes boundaries in their “gender contract”, but the difference is how it is received in the novel and therefore I make two conclusions; Rut Jälms socially forbidden femininity in Lilla Jälm is formed into a boundlessness, which leads to consequences she herself cannot control. Irma Borch in Ingen mans kvinna on the other hand has the power to make a living aswell as being the representative of a socially forbidden femininity based on the concept of the New Woman.