I berättarens grepp : En narratologisk studie av feministiskt medvetandehöjande romaner från 1970-talet

Sammanfattning: This thesis concerns the feminist consciousness-raising novel of the 1970s. The aim of the thesis is to examine narrative strategies which, according to the consciousness-raising practice, are adapted to enlighten the political aspects of the personal. The focus is both on strategies that address the protagonist and on those that address the reader. I also examine in which way the use of these strategies is dependent upon ideas of class and gender. I find that the narrative situation, in this case the relationship between the protagonist and the narrator, is central to the use of the consciousness-raising narrative strategies. In Anna-Lisa Bäckmans Fia i folkhemmet och Fia med manifestet, the protagonist Fia is positioned as an oppressed working-class woman, which results in a narrative situation that gives the protagonist a limited space of action and that gives the narrator the power to interpret the experiences of the protagonist. In Margareta Sarris Ta dej en slav och Mor ror åran är trasig, the relationship between the protagonist and the narrator is more equal, due to its dialogic form that enables the protagonist Lisa to talk back to the narrator. The consciousness-raising narrative follows a heteronormative development that is characteristic of all novels examined. The analysis demonstrates that the narrative situation is important to the plot. Lisa is able to change the course of her life according to the novel’s feminist analysis, which Fia to a lesser degree, is not. The analysis also demonstrates that the narrative position is constructed according to gender as well as to class.