TOTALITARIAN SYSTEMS AND THEIR PEACEFUL ALTERNATIVES IN KARIN BOYE’S KALLOCAIN AND OLGA RAVN’S THE EMPLOYEES

• Authors: Matejicka Anton
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Drawing on recent discussions on fragility and vulnerability, this article delves into the questions of why and how the totalitarian systems collapse. Applied to Karin Boye’s Kallocain (1940) and Olga Ravn’s The Employees (2018), the concept of acknowledged fragility helps societies to locate an alternative to oppressive systems. In Boye’s authoritarian world state, the eponymous substance is instrumentalized to eliminate dissidence, yet ultimately causes a rupture within the body politic. Likewise, Ravn’s anonymous corporation’s exclusionary tactics result in unexpected results among its humanoid crew. Both text’s alternative visions of vulnerability can be characterized as peaceful and accepting of the interconnectedness of human and non-human life.

Keywords

EN

DYSTOPIA; FRAGILITY; VULNERABILITY; PEACE; POSTHUMANISM; KARIN BOYE; OLGA RAVN

• Publisher: Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: World Literature Studies
• Year: 2024
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 93 – 103

Contributors

author

Matejicka Anton

• Department of Scandinavian Studies, Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies, University of Vienna, Austria

• https://orcid.org/0009-0005-6301-7648

Identifiers

DOI

10.31577/WLS.2024.16.4.7