AT ONE WITH NATURE. An Ecocritical Study of the Nature Motif in Three Swedish Horror Writers

Since time immemorial, nature has been conceived of as a female entity. This ancient concept is also a recurring element in contemporary Swedish horror fiction. The purpose of this thesis is to compare the feature of nature in the selected works of Anders Fager, Andreas Marklund and Frida Arwen Rosesund and in what ways these respective depictions rely on a tradition where nature is gendered female. The theoretical starting-point for this comparative study is ecocriticism and its subcategory ecofeminism, which are modes of literary criticism where the role of nature in general, and its female connotations in particular, are appreciated as significant literary features. For executing an analysis that goes beyond what is explicit, the exploration of these three writers’ texts also adopts a psychoanalytical perspective. A common feature among all three writers is the connection between nature, its fantastical or mystical powers, and the female. This concept works both as a motor for the plot of the stories, and as a reflection of the inner and outer reality of their respective characters. Thus, the horrors that are depicted in the nature motif have psychological layers, where the supernatural phenomena that the characters face may be interpreted as external manifestations of inner fears, tensions or conflicts, that often concern issues of sex, gender and power. Hence, these three writers submit to a literary tradition where the recognizable features of the horror story are utilized not only for atmospheric effect, but for dealing with themes that concern a dark aspect of the human condition