"Men jorden strävar ju själv mot rymderna?" : Naturuppfattningen i Moa Martinsons Kvinnor och äppelträd

Previous research on Moa Martinson, and Kvinnor och äppelträd in particular, has mainly focused on the aspect of sex and gender. The overarching purpose of the presented paper is to examine the concept of nature in the aforementioned novel. The text is read as a negotiation, and state of tension, between two differing concepts of nature. On the one hand an anarchist-romanticist view of nature defined by a questioning of the human-nature demarcation, and by its insistence on nature having intrinsic value; on the other hand a capitalist-bourgeois view of nature, drawing a clear line between human and nature, defining nature as an instrument to accomplish other means. The concept of nature is examined along three main lines. The first chapter examines nature as seen through the eyes of the characters and the narrator. In the second chapter the 'place' as a special spatial category is studied. Lastly, the novel's view on human nature is investigated. The results are then analyzed according to Kate Soper's tri-partite concept of nature. On all three levels the novel is found to exhibit a tension between two opposing tendencies. On the one hand nature is described as an animated being (related to concepts such as chance, fate, will), on the other hand a naturalistic realist discourse is represented, describing nature in scientific terms. At the same time the novel contains a deconstructive vein, undermining binary oppositions such as the one suggested above. In the concluding analysis the idea of an authorial voice (used in a Bakthinian sense) is used to examine the conception of nature presented in the novel. A circular view of life and nature emerges, represented by the symbol of the 'path'. A small-scale communitarian ideal is also exhibited, emphasizing the need for humans to live in harmony with, and in proximity to, nature