<p>The Swedish working-class author Ivar Lo-Johansson (1901-1990) wrote a collection of one hundred short stories between the years 1968-1972. His other productions, generally speaking, have partially different social reform purposes, but, according to himself, these short stories were written with the intention to be totally free of tendencies (even though he himself doubted that he succeeded with this).</p><p>During the same period that these short stories were published, the Swedish social democrats were under the challenge of radical movements that, mainly on the radical left’s ideological foundation, had a relatively strong influence in Sweden, among other countries, from the mid 1960’s to the late 1970’s. Since Lo-Johansson mainly seemed to have supported the politics of the social democrats, the purpose of the investigation in this thesis has been to see if he – in the three short stories: <em>Vikingakärlek</em> (1970), <em>Rikslögnaren</em> (1971) and <em>Ansgars resa till Sverige</em> (1972) – is conveying an ideological use of history and basic political values that were used by the social democratic party during this time period. I have also tried to conclude if he is refuting ideas that two of the radical movements, in different ways, were using to challenge the social democracy of that time. These two movements are 1) the new left and 2) radical feminism. The new left opposed, among other things, parliamentary democracy and promoted a revolution. Radical feminism instead challenged social democracy by emphasizing the private sphere as a central cause for the continuing submission of women in society, something that previous to this movement had been neglected. More specifically I have tried to map out if the new left’s ideological use of history and some of its foundational political values are refuted, and if radical feminism’s explanation for the cause of female submission is confuted. </p><p>My conclusions are that Lo-Johansson, in the three short stories, verified the legitimacy of social democracy’s ideological use of history and foundational political values, and, at the same time, he repudiated the new left’s ideological use of history and foundational political values. His view of the cause of women’s submission in society is more ambivalent. In one of his short stories he seemed to be pointing at biological causes, which, among other things, contributed to the legitimacy of the gender system that was a part of social democratic politics, mainly up to the 1960’s. In the other two short stories it instead seemed that he agreed with radical feminism’s ideas of patriarchy as the cause, even though it is not clear if he truly agreed that this system needed to be abolished. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:kau-4801 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Olsson, David |
| Publisher | Karlstad University, Faculty of Social and Life Sciences |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
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