Anna, the girl from Dalarne
Anna, the girl from Dalarne (original title: Anna Svärd ) is the title of a novel by the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf . The novel was published in 1928 and forms the third and final part of the Löwensköld trilogy . The novel is set in Värmland in the first half of the 19th century and deals with the marriage of pastor Karl-Artur Ekenstedt to the peddler Anna Svärd, who comes from a humble background. At the same time, the novel describes how the curse depicted in the first part of the trilogy, which lies on the ring of the old General Löwensköld, is fulfilled.
action
(For the history see Der Ring des Generals and Charlotte Löwensköld ).
The young pastor Karl-Artur Ekenstedt fell out with his fiancée Charlotte Löwensköld and his parents. An attempted reconciliation with the parents did not materialize after Karl-Artur had made his mother even more angry in the effort to reconcile with her, until she suffered a stroke. Instead, Karl-Artur marries the uneducated Anna Svärd, who grew up in simple and poor circumstances in Dalarna and whom he believes God himself has chosen to be his wife.
Anna is looking forward to a life as a well-off pastor's wife. But in her marriage she experiences one disappointment after another: Karl-Artur, who wants to lead a simple life in poverty as a follower of Christ , cancels the three-day wedding celebration that Anna had been looking forward to. At first he doesn't want to have sexual contact with Anna, he buys a small, poor wooden hut instead of a decent parsonage, he treats Anna more and more lovelessly and shows no understanding for her wishes and feelings. Instead, he listens more and more to the whisperings of the scheming and devious Thea Sundler, who is in love with Karl-Artur and works incessantly to separate Karl-Artur and Anna. When Karl-Artur sends away ten orphans, for whom he has taken responsibility as a work of mercy, but who are lovingly cared for and looked after by Anna, not by him and whose care has become part of Anna's life, and when he was finally still Anna forbids playing cards, Anna can no longer stand it. She separates from Karl-Artur.
Karl-Artur gives up his position as assistant pastor and moves across the country to preach God's word not in churches, but in the streets and marketplaces , following the example of Christ and the apostles . Thea Sundler, who has left her husband, accompanies him. Karl-Artur deteriorates more and more and finally delivers an embarrassing spectacle to the visitors of the fair when he insults first the audience and then his companion during a sermon.
Lord of Hedeby is now Baron Adrian Löwensköld, son of that Adrian Löwensköld, who once was almost frightened to death by the spirit of the dead general. His younger brother Göran Löwensköld fled his parents' house as a teenager because he had received a sharp reprimand for Malvina Spaak's daughter Thea. He's hanging around as a tramp. One day in winter Göran brings his youngest daughter to Hedeby, asks his brother Adrian to take care of her, drives away, gets stuck in a snowdrift and freezes to death. Charlotte Schagerström, Karl-Arthur's former fiancée, comes to visit Hedeby. She wants to take Göran's little daughter with her. But Karl-Artur and Thea Sundler kidnap the small child with a horse-drawn sleigh. Adrian and Charlotte take up the chase. Here Adrian tells what a curse the Löwenskölds are burdened with: After Malvina Spaak had saved Adrian Löwensköld's life at the time, Marit Eriksdotter demanded that Adrian should marry Malvina. Since Adrian's parents refused, because Adrian was otherwise engaged, Marit felt betrayed: she had given up her revenge completely in vain. Therefore, Marit Eriksdotter cursed Adrian's mother: Just as three of Marit's loved ones had to die a sudden and gruesome death, three descendants of Baroness Löwensköld are said to die a sudden and gruesome death.
Karl-Artur and Thea drive over a frozen lake and break into the ice. They can still save themselves, but the little child is drowning. Baron Adrian is also killed while trying to save the child. Now Marit Eriksdotter's curse has been fulfilled: three Löwenskölds - Göran, his little daughter and Adrian - died a sudden and gruesome death.
Charlotte manages to separate Karl-Artur from Thea Sundler. With the help of her husband, the wealthy mine owner Schagerström, she sends him to Africa as a missionary . He returns after eight years. But Anna, who in the meantime has found a good and respected position, does not know how to receive him.
meaning
Anna, the girl from Dalarne , follows on from the previous novel in the trilogy, Charlotte Löwensköld . The two novels are much more closely related than Charlotte Löwensköld was with the first part of the trilogy, Der Ring des Generals . In Anna, the girl from Dalarne , a different tone can be heard than in the first two parts of the trilogy: Large parts of the book are colored by Anna's dialect and the description of her simple life.
Anna, the girl from Dalarne is primarily a marriage novel. How the marriage of Anna and Karl-Artur fails because Karl-Artur is only concerned with himself and does not notice Anna's personality at all is described sensitively and vividly. Karl-Arthur's self-deception becomes clear when he, who theoretically worships poverty, sets up a stately study in his little hut or when he takes responsibility for ten orphans in a dramatic scene - still described in Charlotte Löwensköld - through theirs The present then only feels annoyed and disturbed. The contrast between male and female, which is so typical of Selma Lagerlöf's works, is played out once again: in the end, Karl-Artur is a talker who is incapable of living and is unable to perceive or even love other people, while Anna, despite all her cunning and peasant shrewdness, is increasingly developed into a warm and loving family mother. With female instinct and because of her love for Karl-Artur, she also sees through Thea Sundler's machinations, but even Anna is powerless against Thea. Only at the end of the novel does it become clear why this is so: Thea, Malvina Spaak's daughter, is the tool of vengeance that Marit Eriksdotter once threatened to come.
Retaliation for injustice committed and reconciliation: Both topics, so important for Selma Lagerlöf, play an important role in the Löwensköld trilogy. After the vengeance is completed, there is again room for reconciliation. Therefore Selma Lagerlöf let Karl-Artur survive and planned a fourth volume (which then did not materialize). In contrast to Selma Lagerlöf's novels, the end of the novel is open: Anna doesn't know how to behave towards Karl-Artur. It is precisely this open ending that makes Anna, the girl from Dalarne appear so modern. The open ending points to a new time in which women can decide for themselves about their fate.
Anna, the girl from Dalarne is Selma Lagerlöf's last novel. But at the same time he refers back to Selma Lagerlöf's first novel, Gösta Berling . The entire Löwensköld trilogy takes place in Värmland, but in the last part many concrete names of places and people known from Gösta Berling are conjured up again. Lövens långa sjö - the long Löven Lake - is the name of the word, taking a phrase from Gösta Berling . Baron Adrian Löwensköld is even characterized as the Baron Adrian who appeared in Gösta Berling in the Gamla visor chapter as Marianne Sinclaire's fiancé. The reader will also find a surprising allusion to Selma Lagerlöf's second novel, The Miracles of the Antichrist . The old Annstu Lisa, Anna Svärd's acquaintance from her hometown Medstubyn with a prophetic gift, resembles the sibyl in the miracles of the Antichrist who gave birth to the emperor Augustus Jesus.
literature
- Vivi Edström, Selma Lagerlöf , Stockholm 1991