The purpose of this study is to highlight how Pär Lagerkvist’s fictional dwarf, a symbol of the deformed in man but is not always visible on the outside, despises weakness and peace and how the desire for power is expressed in the novel. These aspects in turn lead to contempt for love and mercy, the absence of which implies hostility, something that has moral consequences. The overall moral theme is highlighted from an anti-Nazi perspective through the three images of women with the help of the narratological concept of unreliable narrator. The material used as a basis for the study is the first edition of Lagerkvist’s novel The Dwarf from 1944. Primarily, narratological theory has been used with regard to the concept of unreliable narrator, something that belongs to modern narratology and fiction theory. Unreliable storytelling means that there is a difference between this discourse and the sanctioned content. The unreliable narrator has emerged as a concept in relation to the implicit author. To highlight the anti-Nazi perspective, I have used the moral philosopher Harald Ofstads Vårt förakt för svaghet. The power-theme which is central to the novel, is highlighted on the basis of Nietzsche, who according to Urpu-Liisa Karahka is important in the reading of Lagerkvist in general. Close reading, thematic analysis and narratological method are the methods applied in this study. Christer Johansson has presented and summarized an interesting starting point based on Wayne C. Booth, for narratological analysis where he works with four possible variants for unreliable storytelling. In terms of main results, the question of the dwarf as an unreliable narrator and example of Nazism in relation to the three female charachters show eight cases of false facts, four cases of misinterpretations of correct facts, eight cases regarding how a fictional narrator can make unreliable value judgements about certain fictional facts or circumstances, and finally four cases of how a fictional narrator can express unreliable perceptions of a more general kind, not directly related to individuals in the fictional world.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-208027 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Hjelm, Annica |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för kultur och estetik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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