This thesis is a study of social alienation in two novels by Sara Lidman, Regnspiran (1958) and Bära mistel (1960). Taking the Swedish ”people’s home” and the normative view of people that it entailed as its point of departure, it examines the different kinds of alienation present in Lidman’s work. The analysis consists of three main parts. Part one examines geographical alienation in the novels, as well as the process of racialization of bodies that are considered out of place. Part two considers how different types of masculinity is represented in the novels, as they intersect structures of religion, class and sexuality. The third and last part is concentrated on the main character of the novels, Linda Ståhl, and the deviant female artist in general. The conclusion is that the novels lends a voice to people in many different kinds of alienation. It also poses questions about identity that run even deeper. Through imitation and stage art, the main characters build layers of identity that questions the idea of an essential, ”real” identity. Processes that genders and racializes people become visible, and the performative acts that create identity are heightened and put in focus.

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The purpose of this essay is to investigate how representations of bicycling women in literary works by H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy Richardson, Grant Allen, George F. Hall, and Alice Meynell express mental and physical freedoms that had previously been denied women due to archaic societal norms. The selected pieces of literature are from the late 19th century and early 20th century, a period during which both the bicycle boom and female emancipation contributed in significant ways to societal change. Through close readings, examples are given of how the New Woman character used the bicycle as a catalyst in the struggle for emancipation and a feminist approach is applied to explore how literary bicycling women characters oppose the stipulated gender norms, challenge the prevailing gender dichotomy and hierarchy, and attain new aspects of freedom. This essay shows that the bicycle grants women characters in the selected texts not only physical aspects of freedom but psychological ones as well. / Uppsatsens mål är att undersöka hur representationer av kvinnliga cyklister i litterära verk författade av H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy Richardson, Grant Allen, George F. Hall och Alice Meynell uppvisar olika aspekter av psykisk och fysisk frihet vilka tidigare förvägrats kvinnor på grund av konservativa samhällsnormer. De valda litterära verken är skrivna runt sekelskiftet 1900, under en tid då både cykelns popularisering och kvinnans frigörelse bidrog till samhällets omdaning. Genom närläsning ges exempel på hur den moderna kvinnan (the New Woman) som skönlitterär karaktär använde cykeln som en katalysator i kampen för frigörelse, och genom ett feministiskt perspektiv undersöks hur cyklande kvinnor motsatte sig de stipulerade könsnormerna, utmanade könsmaktsordningen, och uppnådde nya typer av frihet. Uppsatsen visar att cykeln ger kvinnliga karaktärer i de valda texterna såväl fysisk som psykisk frihet.