”Låta slumpen råda” : En komparativ studie av fokaliseringen i Den allvarsamma leken och För Lydia

Sammanfattning: In 1912 Hjalmar Söderberg wrote what came to be a Swedish classic, The serious game, about the two young lovers Lydia and Arvid and their failed attempts to be with each other. 1973 Gun-Britt Sundström responded with her own novel, For Lydia, that tells the same story but from Lydia´s point of view.  This essay discusses if the macro perspective, Sundström´s tendency in giving Lydia an agency, can be seen in the structure of the language, the micro perspective. To enable this, the essay has been using parts of the narratology theory founded in the 1960’s that was partly produced by Gérard Genette and supplemented by Mieke Bal. Looking at focalization (from what angle the story is told), it is possible to investigate what kind of information the reader can assimilate of Lydia and her progress. Susan Lanser defined feminist narratology and in accordance to her theory the essay examines the context and author of the novel to fully understand the writings. Sundström in a higher degree than Söderberg includes intern focalization when it comes to Lydia, which gives the reader more information about Lydia and her agency. Söderberg focalizes Arvid rather than Lydia which gives the reader the impression that Lydia acts selfish and unaccountable. Both novels arose in circumstances characterized by female emancipation and by regarding that, a more prominent picture of Sundström´s intention to make For Lydia a feministic response to The serious game can be seen. In conclusion, the essay shows that, the tendency of Sundström, to make a feministic response to Söderberg´s novel, can be seen even in the micro perspective of the language.