Äta djävlar, föda ord : Om återkommande groteska motiv i Mikael Niemis romaner Kyrkdjävulen, Populärmusik från Vittula, Fallvatten och Koka björn

• Main Author: Östling, Marie
• Format: Bachelor Thesis
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Umeå universitet, Institutionen för kultur- och medievetenskaper 2022
• Subjects: Mikael Niemi; Niemi; Populärmusik från Vittula; Fallvatten; Koka björn; Kyrkdjävulen; grotesk; grotesken; Bachtin; karneval; Tornedalen; tornedalslitteratur; norrlandslitteratur; minoritet; minoritetslitteratur; Sara Ahmed; Kristeva; Freud; abjekt; det abjekta; det kusliga; das unheimliche; äckel; meänkieli; knapsu; ei se kannatte; Humanities and the Arts; Humaniora och konst; Languages and Literature; Språk och litteratur; General Literature Studies; Litteraturvetenskap; Niemis
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-196419

This essay deals with recurring grotesque motifs in Mikael Niemi’s novels Kyrkdjävulen, Populärmusik från Vittula (Popular Music from Vittula), Fallvatten and Koka björn (To Cook a Bear). It aims to widen the academic understanding of Niemi’s works by focusing on their aesthetics in relation to previous studies, which have mostly been concerned with placing Niemi in a context of Tornedalian minority literature. With the grotesque defined as monstrous and boundary breaking imagery that challenges common rational, ideological or moral world views, this study shows that these motifs can both strengthen, nuance and undermine postcolonial interpretations of the novels.Through Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque, emphasis is placed on the subversive and utopian aspects of the grotesque motifs. With the use of Sigmund Freud’s term the uncanny (das unheimliche) and Julia Kristeva’s term the abject, psychological and emotional aspects of the selected motifs are drawn to the surface. And, by turning to Sara Ahmed’s thoughts on emotions and performativity, the function of disgust in said motifs is examined. The grotesque motifs in question are: the degradation of the mouth, the lower animals, the boy with the knife, the witch mother, and the androgyne. The first part of the analysis shows that in Niemi’sworks the mouth is associated with storytelling, power, agency and the subject’s ability to both knowand express himself, but also to take the world into himself and be changed by it. The mouth is often degraded, which in a carnivalesque manner results in a linguistic revival. The second part of the analysis argues that lower animals, such as rats, reptiles and bat-like devil spawn, are symbols of the abject – that which man must cast out in order to exist. The motifs of the rats and devils are associated with themes of language, identity and writing, but also allude to a threatening feminine principle. In the third part of the analysis, the motifs of the boy with the knife, the witch mother and the androgyne are ...