Syndens Scheherazade. En studie av subjekt och sexualitet i Birgitta Stenbergs "Kärlek i Europa"

Abstract

Birgitta Stenberg’s autobiographical novel Kärlek i Europa was published in 1981. It takes place in the fifties and is written in a genre popular in Sweden during the seventies, the feminist confession novel. The genre had a strong political purpose, by way of sharing experiences of living as a woman in a patriarchal society the aim was to raise consciousness of oppression and make way for liberation and sisterhood. But there was not room for everyone in the feminist struggle. Stenberg describes a different road to liberation than the one prescribed by the feminist movement of the seventies. In the story she tells the developement is not obvious, the I of the novel does not walk in a straight line from oppressed to liberated, from object to subject. As a seventeen year old girl Birgitta leaves Stockholm for Paris, with the aim of becoming a writer. The trip becomes partly an exploratory expedition of the European continent, but mainly she explores herself and her own sexuality. But sexuality is not unproblematic in this era. By challenging the accepted norms, those of respectability, heterosexuality and monogamy, Birgitta continuously finds herself in dangerous and destructive situations. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how Stenberg, by challenging normative ideas of gender, desire and sexuality, questions the idea of what a woman can and should be. Through a feminist and queer perspective I investigate how Birgitta Stenberg challenges ideas of womanhood and femininity. By using Judith Butler’s theory of the compulsory heterosexuality and Beverley Skeggs’ concept of respectability Stenbergs creation of a new female subject is examined, a subject which by previous scholars has been charactarized as too individualistic to be feminist. By using queer theory I will put that conclusion into question. Stenberg’s protagonist challenges the idea of women as a homogenous group and thereby she broadens the idea of the feminist subject.