Vad gör du med oss, Doktor Glas? : Karaktärsframställning, berättargrepp och effekt i Hjalmar Söderbergs Doktor Glas.

Doktor Glas by the Swedish author Hjalmar Söderberg, was published over a hundred years ago, in 1905 in Sweden. Söderberg received both praise and criticism, the latter getting more attention because of the novel's unethical plot about a doctor that murders his patient to save the woman he secretly adores. The aim of this essay is to examine the novel's character description in terms of narrative approach, and the effect it is likely to have on the reader. My theory is that Söderberg "plants" affect and emotion into the character description of the protagonist Glas, and I use narratology as a method to support this theory. In my analysis I present different approaches and techniques that Söderberg uses to portray the novel's main character in order to ensure that Glas will be impossible to categorize psychologically – is he evil, is he good? The description of him makes it impossible to know and it challenges the readers perception of him. My conclusion is that Glas, due to Söderberg's narrative techniques, has become an insoluble riddle that still, a hundred yars after the publication of the novel, fascinates the Swedish literary world.