Research on multimodal narration in illustrated children´s books and picturebooks have mainly focused on the relations between the text, the illustrations and the book itself as a medium. Relatively few studies discuss the importance of sound in this context. In this article, however, I examine what Irina Rajewsky refers to as a medial configuration presented by an illustrated book for children and an accompanying CD including the narrator’s voice, songs and music. Drawing on the concept of aurality and Lars Elleström’s model for intermedial analysis, I analyze how text, illustration, and sound mediate a detective story for children: Martin Widmark’s and Helena Willis’ Schlagersabotören (2012). The concluding discussion combines perspectives from both genre theory and intermediality studies: In which ways can auditory text and non-verbal sound present the young reader with some of the clues needed in a detective story? Two major functions of sound as a medium can be identified. Firstly, non-verbal sound helps the reader distinguish between the different diegetic levels in the story, thereby focusing the locked room so typical of the detective story. Secondly, auditory text and vocal pitch help the reader perceive some of the anger and frustration among the suspects in that room. Sound, together with text and illustration, presents the reader with a mystery, but also with the cognitive tools to solve it.

”My heart was with Malin”: Mediation and Transformation in Fredrika Bremer’s The Neighbours. This article focuses on a scene in Fredrika Bremer’s 1837 novel, Grannarne (Th e Neighbours), investigating the relationship between reading aloud and empathy established in this work. It discusses the characters’ varied responses to the shared reading experience, utilising reception theory. In a follow-up discussion, I examine the feasibility of using newer theories concerning narrative empathy. Fritz Breithaupt’s theory is of particular interest since he suggests that second-level observation (and thus placing oneself in another person’s perspective) is central to the experience of empathy. Finally, I consider the emotional responses of the characters in relation to melodrama in Bremer’s work.

Through a liberal feminist perspective, this essay investigates the unconventional marital views of the fictional character Elizabeth Bennet. These are analyzed and compared to the traditional marital opinions of the novel's social environment. Moreover, the historical context is important in understanding the marital views in Pride and Prejudice, because the novel was written at a time when the views toward marriage changed significantly. This paper argues that Elizabeth's behavior, expressed opinions and rejections of Mr. Collins's and Mr. Darcy's proposals depict liberal feminist ideas of marriage. The literary review supports the notion that there are two contrasting attitudes toward marriage in Pride and Prejudice: the traditional view and the liberal feminist view. The thorough examination of Elizabeth Bennet's character strongly suggests that she represents the unconventional view of marriage, while characters such as Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet, and Charlotte Lucas voice the traditional view of marriage. Furthermore, an analysis of Mr. Darcy's attraction toward Elizabeth indicates that it was Elizabeth's very unconventionality that made Mr. Darcy fall in love with her.

Traditionally technology has been a male area of interest; not many novels have been written about technology from a female perspective. It has largely been true that, as Barbara Page puts it, women often have an aversion ‘to computer technologies and programs thought to be products of masculinist habits of mind’ (112). However, with a broadening perspective and use of information and communication technologies (ICT), a growing number of women also take interest in, advantage of – sometimes even change – the technology to meet their own requirements. Reflecting this shift, Jeanette Winterson’s The PowerBook and Pat Cadigan’s children’s book Avatar are two examples of novels where ICT play a major role. That women often see the benefits of a less regulated space provided by the technology is explored in these two novels. Édouard Glissant explains how computers can generate a ‘‘space within the indeterminacy of axioms” (84, my italics). According to Glissant this indeterminacy opens up possibilities and “creates the opportunity for an infinite sort of conjunction, in which science and poetry are equivalent. […] The poetic axiom, like the mathematical axiom, is illuminating because it is fragile and inescapable, obscure and revealing. In both instances the prospective system accepts the accident and grasps that in the future it will be transcended” (85). The indeterminacy is destabilizing, and together science and literature create an imaginary space where imaginative (hence ideological) liberation is possible.

This essay highlights The Happy Prince’s advantageous use of conventions of the fairy tale genre to stress critical issues of the Victorian period: the challenge of the established Christian socio-moral order, the rising of the bourgeois industrial society, and the advent of aestheticism as a response. Using the close reading technique supported by the Victorian socio-historical background, the analysis establishes that the criticism proceeds by double associations. Firstly, the clear structure of the tale, enriched by a plethora of aesthetical features and suitable narrative processes, is propitious for children’s access to a message calling for more human generosity. Meanwhile, subtle analogies to the Christian imagery appear blurred by paradoxical elements. This prevents a definite religious interpretation from adults to which those messages are intended. Secondly, in connection with aestheticism, a social and moral criticism takes the form of a satire of the utilitarian vision of the bourgeoisie and a questioning of the common Victorian beliefs: the link between beauty and moral integrity, as well as the moral code of femininity. Finally, the utilitarian discourse and the disapproval of the research for pleasure from beauty merging with a hedonist vision, advocate an “art for art’s sake” free of these respective considerations.

Att kvinnliga författare får mindre utrymme än män i läromedel i svenska är väl dokumenterat, men hur kvinnliga författare framställs jämfört med manliga författare vet vi betydligt mindre om. I den här studien, som är en del av min avhandling från 2015, undersöker jag hur en rad kvinnliga författarskap skildras, jämfört med de manliga, i ett urval av läromedel i svenska för gymnasieskolan.

Studien har sin teoretiska och metodologiska hemvist inom kritisk diskursanalys (Fairclough 1992, 1995, 2010). Med begreppen intertextualitet och interdiskursivitet analyseras vilka röster (läromedelsförfattarens, författarens, andra inbjudna röster) som ges utrymme i läromedlen och hur rösterna ges utrymme, t.ex. genom direkt eller indirekt anföring. Jag redogör för hur rösterna är hierarkiserade – vilka som dominerar i talet om författarskapen och vilka som får mindre utrymme.  Vidare undersöks hur rösterna talar om författarskapet och hur röstbytena kan beskrivas.

Resultatet visar att när manliga författarskap behandlas samspelar läromedelsförfattarens röst i regel med olika röster, t.ex. ansedda kritiker, vilket bidrar till en flerstämmig diskurs. Rösterna om de manliga författarna är ofta specialiserade, dvs. inriktade mot vetenskapliga begrepp där författarens konstnärliga betydelse lyfts fram. När de kvinnliga författarskapen diskuteras är diskursen snarare monofonisk, dvs. få röster förutom läromedelsförfattarens ges plats. Läromedelsförfattarens röst är mer evaluerande och fokuserar främst på de kvinnliga författarnas sociala och empatiska förmåga. Med studien vill jag också visa hur litteraturdidaktiskt inriktade problemställningar kan kombineras med språkvetenskaplig teori och metod. Denna typ av korsbefruktning är mycket ovanlig inom litteraturdidaktisk forskning varför studien kan ses som ett försök att förnya fältet såväl teoretiskt som metodologiskt.

This essay argues that the protagonist of The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins can be considered to be a female character in a male form. By applying feminist literary criticism this essay map out the traditional gender roles in society along with the traditional gender roles in Middle Earth in order to investigate Bilbo’s female characteristics, the similarities between him and women in patriarchal society as well as the female imagery present in The Hobbit. The results show that Bilbo Baggins’ characteristics such as emotionality, sensitivity and compassion corresponds more to the traditional female gender norms than that of the male gender norms. The results also indicate the similarities between Bilbo’s experiences and that of women in a patriarchal society, such as the attention to being respectable and difficulties working in a male-dominated field.

This essay argues that Little Women does not promote breaking stereotypical gender norms and nineteenth century gender roles, contrary to what several critics say. This paper will be using feminist criticism and analyzing two of the novel’s main characters, Meg and Jo, and examining their behavior towards stereotypical gender norms and rules. This essay concludes that while Jo challenges certain gender norms and roles, such as having “manly” emotions (anger) and taking on male-dominated jobs (author), within the narration she is punished for these and forced to become a conventional woman of the nineteenth century in order to live a happy life. On the other hand, Meg follows the rules of societal gender expectations and is rewarded for her behavior. By examining these two characters, this essay establishes that Little Women, because it is a didactic novel, delivers the moral that women can only be truly happy if they fit into stereotypical gender norms and roles.

The purpose of this Master Thesis is to compare two American novel suites for young women, Louisa May Alcott‟s Little Women and Good Wives to Ann Brashares series of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The social status of women and children in the US during the 19th century is analyzed and compared historically and literary with the situation 130 years later.The main question is, what differences exist in the books and is there a connection between the changes in society and literature?The method of this Master Thesis is to make a comparative narratological analysis placed in a historical context.The result shows that the multiple character remains and enhances the identification process. Motherhood in the works of Alcott is prominent, whereas in the works of Brashares, sisterhood replaces motherhood.In Alcott‟s US during the 19th century, Christian faith was in the foreground. The goal for girls was the holy matrimony, followed by the sanctuary of heaven. Brashares depicts, in the 21st century, self-fulfilment to be aspired on earth.The strength of Alcott‟s portrayed sisterhood is weakened when marriage is consumed. In Brashares works, the love relationships are no longer the sole purpose of life and consequently not a competitor to the sisterly friendship.

In relation to English translations of Tomas Tranströmer’s poetry this paper examines two positions of the translator — the medium and the vandal. The positions are rendered from a discussion, later called the "Transtromer squabbles", that arose in 2007 in The Times Literary Supplement.

Through close readings of two Tranströmer poems, "Paret" and "Svarta vykort", with focus on formalistic factors like syllable and word count, rhythm and the texts graphical appearance, the paper shows that the opposition between the medium and the vandal shields some severe problems concerning translation.

The paper suggests that this opposition is related to a highly biased focus on the relation between the original and the translation. As an alternative it proposes an approach to translating from a reader´s perspective, focusing less on the act of translation and more on the act of communication.

This essay is around C.S Lewis’s classic children’s novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and it focuses on the metaphorical meaning of the door and what insights it provides each time it is opened. It argues that the journey into Narnia is also a psychological journey, representing spiritual awakening. It draws conclusion that through this psychological journey in Narnia, the protagonists has undergone spiritual rebirth and their psyche has been raised to new heights.

Set in the totalitarian society of Oceania, George Orwell’s 1984 illustrates how a government can exert complete control over its citizens through surveillance, manipulation, and more central to this essay, language. By employing a structuralist framework based on Ferdinand de Saussure’s research on semiotics and the system of language, this essay investigates the viability of Newspeak as a language. It does so by using the aspects of arbitrariness, value, difference, the collective, and mutability to discern to what extent Orwell’s Newspeak aligns with Saussure’s theory of how languages function. In addition, it looks at how these language changes can be observed using specific examples of the novel. The essay finds that the implementation of Newspeak is entirely reliant on other areas of the government’s totalitarian oppression in order to be feasibly implemented, as semiotic theory argues language is a product of the collective and, as such, cannot be constructed by a group of individuals. The essay thus concludes that Newspeak as a constructed language is not viable, as over time, the language will inevitably return to the hands of the collective consciousness, and once that happens, the language will begin to change according to the needs of the linguistic community.

Modern detective fiction on World War One enables the reader to both remember and come to terms with some of the most tragic and horrific events and consequences of the War. The genre operates as a site of mourning and remembrance that relies on acknowledgement, i.e., a form of active knowledge, expressed in public as the recognition, re-thinking and re-stating aloud of claims that other human beings have on us. Charles Todd’s sixteen novels in the Detective Ian Rutledge series invite the reader to take part in investigating crimes that were either committed during the War or that are directly related to events that took place during the War. The stories never fail us because Rutledge does everything he is expected to do: solve the mystery, restore order and reinforce the value and power of moral integrity. The novels tell us important things about how war affects the individual, how it can never be forgotten but – for the right person, how its lessons can also be harnessed in the service of good.

This essay argues that the patriarchy is pervasive throughout George Orwell’s novella Animal Farm. By providing examples of narrative events and character actions, the essay aims to make evident the ways in which the patriarchy is represented throughout the novella. The concept of patriarchy is defined, and characters and events that take place within the narrative of Animal Farm are analyzed through the lens of traditional gender roles and toxic masculinity. Both male and female characters are included to present the ways in which society in Animal Farm is patriarchal and the essay argues that the presence of the patriarchy pervades the narrative. The presence of patriarchal structures can be seen throughout the narrative, including characters, character’s actions and how events are portrayed. To conclude, discussing the novella from a feminist theoretical perspective is good for understanding the work in a way that is different from most other analyses in academia and this essay argues that the patriarchy indeed is present throughout the narrative of Animal Farm. 

Alice Munro’s "The Love of a Good Woman" is perhaps one of the most important stories in her œuvre in terms of how it accentuates the motivation for the Nobel Prize of Literature: "master of the contemporary short story." The story was first published in The New Yorker in December 1996, and over 70 pages long it pushes every rule of what it means to be categorised as short fiction. Early critic of the genre, Edgar Allan Poe distinguished short fiction as an extremely focused attention to plot, properly defined as that to which "no part can be displaced wit- hout ruin to the whole". Part of Munro’s art is that of stitching seemingly disparate narrative threads together and still leaving the reader with a sense of complete- ness.

The story’s publication in The New Yorker included a subtitle that is not part of its appearing in the two-year-later collection. The subtitle, "a murder, a mystery, a romance," is interesting in how it is suggestive for possible interpretations and the story’s play with genres. In a discussion of critical readings of Munro’s story, I propose that the story’s resonation of significance lies in its daring composition of narrative threads where depths of meaning keep occurring depending on what aspects one is focusing on for the moment. Further, I suggest that a sense of completion is created in tone and paralleling of imagery. Meaning emerges in what I have called a story’s "possibility-space." This term has affinities with what others have named "sideshadowing," where rather than resisting closure, the sto- ry turns back into itself, and compels the reader to further reflect on the difficult issues of human behaviour raised in the story.

Den här studien analyserar Tranströmers diktsamlingar 17 dikter, Hemligheter på vägen och Klanger och spår utifrån tematiken kring tid. Detta genom närläsning av dikterna och application av kognitiv lingvistik på metaforerna kopplade till tid. Resultatet av studien är att all tid existerar samtidigt i Tranströmers poesi, enligt T.S. Eliots teori att både dåtid och framtid finns här och nu, vilket syns på diverse historiska aspekter i nuet såsom ordval och porträttdikter. Tiden i dessa dikter tar formen av insekter såsom ett armbandsur och ett fjärilsmuseum. Fåglarna i dikterna vaktar tiden, olika fågelarter har hand om olika tidsperioder och de kan även misslyckas med tiden. Utöver detta kan tiden även ha en rumslighet likt en labyrint, schakt eller sjukhusbyggnader samt att den kan flöda i en nedåtgående rörelse. Vanliga konceptuella metaforer förekommer i Tranströmers poesi men oftast på ett nyskapande sätt som strider mot den allmänna definitionen av tid som kronologisk, linjär och uppdelad i mindre enheter.

Med utgångspunkt i genusteori, intersektionalitet och litteraturteori analyserar denna studie två elevvalda böcker från ett bokprojekt i en gymnasieskola; Hungerspelen av Suzanne Collins och Jag är Zlatan Ibrahimović: min historia av Zlatan Ibrahimović och David Lagercrantz, varav en bok är flickvald och en är pojkvald. Böckerna analyseras utifrån genusperspektiv i förhållande till traditionella könsstereotyper, såsom hur de kvinnliga och manliga karaktärerna beskrivs, hur de talar, hur de påverkas av andra aspekter såsom klass och etnicitet samt hur fördelningen av män och kvinnor ser ut. Utöver nykritikens närläsning av litteraturen analyseras de sammanställda listorna med boktitlar som eleverna har valt, för att urskilja potentiella mönster i förhållande till genus, vilket ställs mot de böcker som i en intervju med läraren bakom bokprojektet framkommer att hon skulle välja att läsa i sin klass. Genrer och författare för de elevvalda böckerna analyseras utifrån befintlig forskning för att kunna skönja om det överensstämmer med forskningen, samt huruvida den litteratur som presenteras av läraren stämmer överens med de preferensramar som finns för flickor och pojkars läsning. Resultatet av litteraturanalysen är att huvudpersonerna i böckerna ständigt gör genus, feminitet och maskulinitet, för att uppnå olika mål och till och med överleva. Zlatan vill framstå som tuff och imponera på andra män medan Katniss måste följa de kvinnliga skönhetsidealen i huvudstaden för att få sponsorer. I båda böckerna är karaktärerna i majoritet män, vilket i Zlatans fall beror på hans karriär som är mansdominerad och följer mönstret för medelklassmannen som skapar sin manlighet i en homosocial sfär. I Hungerspelen är de viktigaste personerna som omger Katniss män, men den är i övrigt mer uppblandad och traditionella könskodade yrken är inte lika könskodade. Båda böckerna problematiserar klass och det är stor skillnad på män och kvinnor från arbetarklass och överklass. Både Katniss och Zlatan gör en klassresa igenom boken. När det kommer till elevernas läsning är det endast en av fyra lärarvalda böcker som passar pojkars läsning, övriga tre stämmer bättre överens med flickors val av litteratur. De böcker som valts av eleverna har en jämn spridning av kvinnliga och manliga författare. Pojkar föredrar att läsa deckare, biografier och fantasy, medan flickor hellre läser böcker som handlar om kärlek och romantik.