Kvindeliv - i Litteratur anno 2022: Krop, moderskab og psyke

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the portrayal of the life of women in recent Danish literature written by women and published in 2022. This counts the works Pigedyr written by Cecilie Lind, Sult by Tine Høeg, and Tænk ikke på mig by Vilma Sandnes Johansson. Here, the issues of women, such as body, motherhood, and psyche are explored. New materialism is used with an emphasis on the work of Gregersen and Skiveren Den materielle drejning (2016) and Skiveren’s Ph.D. thesis Kødets Poesis (2019). This is realized in conjunction with affect theory. A review of earlier views on body and mind is given. Here, the focus is on both dualism, with Kant and Descartes as representatives, as well as monism, where Spinoza is a central figure. This is done as their thinking is deeply embedded in Western philosophy, and to elucidate the motives for the epistemological and literary leaps from humanism to posthumanism, from modernism to postmodernism, and from poststructuralism and the linguistic turn to new materialism. This is done to clarify what the understanding of new materialism is built upon and reacting to. The focus of new materialism is on the body. As an extension of this, the posthuman theories by Karen Barad, with her concepts of agential realism and intra-action, and Jane Bennett, with her understanding that matter vibrates, bring attention to a sensitivity to the material world. In addition, the following feminist theorists Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Elizabeth Grosz, Mayra Rivera, and Luce Irigaray are included. Julia Kristeva’s interpretation of “the abject” as bodily fluids, which is something the human cannot control, is utilized. Affect theory is used to explore how it feels for the women in the selected works to have a body with agency. Here, the direction Massumi is representing and his approach to affect theory, inspired by Deleuze and his reading of Spinoza, is applied. Furthermore, Ahmed’s understanding of affect theory is utilized, and her concepts of Happy Objects, Killjoy, and Affective Economics are introduced. The concept of the genre autofiction is introduced, using the criteria of Behrendt and Bunch for characterizing literary works. Further, the works are placed in relation to the tendencies within Danish literature, which Camilla Schwartz refers to as “voksenfobilitteratur” (phobia of adulthood literature) and “moderskabslitteratur” (motherhood literature). The analysis reveals that all three works have characteristics of autofiction, but only Tænk ikke på mig can according to Behrendt and Bunch be characterized as such. The works share the same narrator mode, which corroborates how it feels to be a woman when the body is active and violates the wishes of the subject. All the women portrayed experience the uncontrollability of the body: In Pigedyr the main character must starve herself to look right but her body is bleeding and smelling, despite her aspirations of being a passive doll. In Sult the main character experiences how her body works against her wish of becoming a mother. In Tænk ikke på mig the main character discovers how the body of her mother is decaying because of cancer, while her own body is developing into an adult woman, emphasizing the contrast to the decay in her mother. The discussion discloses how the works cannot be unambiguously placed in Schwartz’s literary tendencies on phobia of adulthood and motherhood, but instead are an extension of this and are a part of the body-oriented trend seen within new Danish literature. Collectively, it is evident from the analysis and discussion of the three works within this thesis that the body is playing an important acting role that cannot be escaped, not even through dualism. Common for the works is the special corporeal and affective bond in motherhood, where feelings between mother and daughter are intense. Motherhood marks the life of women, whether it is positive as in Sult, negative as in Pigedyr, or ambiguous as in Tænk ikke på mig. The women are connected to their material bodies, and they perpetually feel the consequences of this. Their psyche is activated in interaction with the bodily conditions of sorrow and anger. During the life of women, a diverse range of issues arise and common to these is that the body plays a central role.

A master thesis from Aalborg University

Kvindeliv - i Litteratur anno 2022: Krop, moderskab og psyke

[The life of Women - in Literature anno 2022: Body, motherhood and psyche]