Maria Sandel och det klassmedvetna barnet. En komparativ motivstudie av barnet i "Hexdansen" och "Mannen som reste sig"

Abstract

This essay examines how the situation of the working-class child in early 20th century Stockholm is depicted in the authorship of Maria Sandel. The study uses Beata Agrell´s discussion about early working-class literature as “Gebrauchsliteratur” – a literature for use in the class struggle of the time that demanded a meditative reading. In a comparative motif study the essay focuses on children in "Hexdansen" (1919) and "Mannen som reste sig" (1927). The first is a story about a poor family of the lumpenproletariat with children brought up by the street. The second, contains a story about two brothers and their divorced father that are climbing the social ladder, while their mother ends up in the lumpenproletariat. The aim of this essay is to see how class-consciousness appears in the depiction of the child and to see how the child is used in these stories, in order to illuminate but also strengthen the position of the working-class in society. The essay also examines how “the conscientious worker”, a form of ideal type common amongst working-class people at that time, is shown in the children of these books. To conduct the analysis the study by Ronny Ambjörnsson, "Den skötsamme arbetaren, idéer och ideal i ett norrländskt sågverkssamhälle" 1880–1930 (1988), is used. Ambjörnsson presents this ideal type as a strategy in the social movement to strengthen the position of working-class people. A thesis by Stig-Lennart Godin about class-consciousness in early Swedish working-class literature, "Klassmedvetandet i tidig svensk arbetarlitteratur" (1994) is also used. The reading shows that children are used as vehicles and symbols of the working class in these books just as much as adults. But the social circumstances are even worse for them in many ways. They are class-conscious, conscientious as well as negligent, but most of all, small adults growing up way too fast.