”Jag vågar inte säga nej till arbete” : En analys av den prekära tillvaron i tre litterära verk: Linjen, Tjänster i hemmet och Cykelbudet

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis is to analyse how three books can be seen as a modern form of the Swedish working class literature tradition. The works are Linjen by Elise Karlsson, Tjänster i hemmet by Marie Hållander, and Cykelbudet by Anders Teglund. The first two books are fictional accounts of the precarious working conditions in contemporary Sweden, and the last book is a hybrid between novel and non-fiction. This thesis utilizies Marxist alienation theory, Bourdieu’s theory of capital and Guy Standing’s theory of the precariat. Furthermore, I relate the material to different defintions of working class literature. By analyzing the material with these theoretical concepts I establish that alienation is a common theme, that Bourdieu’s theory can explain the complex class positions of the main characters, and that all books depict precarious labor. The results show that the three books can be labeled as a modern form of working class literature, even though they differ from earlier forms of this tradition.