Det förflutnas spegel : Mimesis, narrativ struktur och historisk förståelse i Vilhelm Mobergs Sänkt sedebetyg

Sammanfattning

This essay investigates mimesis and narrative structure in the swedish novel Sänkt sedebetyg (1935) by Vilhelm Moberg. The aim is to investigate how fiction can enable understanding of universalhuman experience over time and space. Through close readings of selected scenes, the essayanalyzes how the narrative form of the novel – including temporality, perspective and evaluation –enables the reader to experience and identify with the characters and plot when meeting thehistorical specific situations portrayed in the novel. The theoretical framework revolving aroundmimesis and temporality is a collection of thoughts made by Aristotle, Paul Ricoeur and ErichAuerbach. It is against this background the study argues that the novel enables an understandingof time through narration that reaches beyond historical facts. Additionally, literary scholar SuzanneKeen’s theories about narrative empathy are used to deepen the understanding of the reader’sresponse to the text.The analysis shows how readers through the novel’s narrative structure are enabled to feel bothdistanced and connected to the unfamiliar depictions of historical and social situations and norms.The specific historical phenomena such as the Swedish farming society, religious authoritystructures and exploited titles like “rackaren” becomes intelligible by the narrative invitation toexperience the story through protagonist Knut Toring. By this movement of alienation andrecognition, the reader is invited to participate in the narrative and therefore enabled to feelnarrative empathy. A discussion is made about the didactical potential of close reading, claimingimportance in a field dominated by thematic analyses and studies based on external theories. In awider sense, the study suggest that literature may work as a medium to experience history and thepast, not as mere facts, but as organized through human narratives.