Ta sig hem : Skönlitterära skildringar av kvinnan och hemmet från tidigt 1900-tal

Sammanfattning: The aim of this dissertation is to examine how the concept of home is constructed in novels by Swedish female authors from the early 20th century. This includes analysing how the dwellings of the main characters are depicted and what ideas are expressed concerning practices of the home. The novels discussed in the study are Elin Wägner’s Pennskaftet (1910), Selma Lagerlöf’s Charlotte Löwensköld (1925) and Anna Svärd (1928), and Moa Martinson’s Mor gifter sig (1936). All have female characters at the centre and depict these characters’ relationship to their homes.How are homes portrayed in the novels? What does it mean to inhabit and feel at home? In which ways are homes portrayed as class- and gender-coded places? These are the research questions of this study. Through exploring the literary texts, my intention is to give an in-depth picture of the renegotiation of home, and of women’s place and opportunities during the early 20th century. The dissertation contributes to the field of spatial literature studies and to the research tradition that studies homes in literature. Spatial theory, social and architectural history and queer and gender research is touched upon. Concepts by Sara Ahmed and Iris Marion Young are used as analytic tools.During the early 20th century, shifting gender relations, technological development, emigration, nationalism and an increased interest in questions of hygiene all contributed to making the home a central matter of discussion in Sweden. Housing was discussed on a national level and was, for the first time in Swedish history, considered a responsibility of the state. At the heart of this was the assumption that good homes would improve the lives of its inhabitants, consequently making them better citizens.The dual nature of the home, simultaneously ideal image and reality, is clearly thematised in all novels. The characters relate to the home as an ideal and contrast it to their actual homes. None of the central characters have an inherited, given place to call home. Instead, most of the characters explore the potential of the home, as they turn forward towards their ideals.The norm that prescribes that a marriage, or a nuclear family, are necessary for establishing a home is discussed and questioned in all the novels. Both Pennskaftet and Mor gifter sig discuss the question of what a home is, by questioning whether a particular dwelling counts as a home according to societal norms, but also whether it is perceived as such by the individual. Wägner and Martinson depict privacy and seclusion as a positive value of the home that the female characters express that they lack and desire. However, in Charlotte Löwensköld and Anna Svärd, where the spatial structure forms the basis for misunderstandings, boundaries get a more ambivalent role.In the dissertation, I show how the novels from the early 20th century connect descriptions and ideas of home to questions about care, responsibility, love and marriage. I also show how they emphasise a woman’s need for independence and seclusion, and how they express women’s longing to feel at home – in a house and in society.