| Summary: | Lena Manderstedt, Luleå University of Technology Depictions of Women in an Emergent Modernity. Doomed Female Deadbeats and Country Women in Runar Schildt’s Short Stories (Kvinnoskildringar i en framväxande modernitet. Undergångsdömda dagdrivar- och allmogekvinnor i Runar Schildts novellistik) This paper focuses on five of Runar Schildt’s short stories, published 1917–1920. The aim is to illustrate how female protagonists’ identities are shaped in relation to time and place in an emergent modernity. The depictions have been highlighted by using an underlying aesthetic related to theories of deadbeats, and a number of themes: the theme of escape, the theme of love and the theme of death. The selection of short stories was made observing the criterion of female protagonists. Peter Lamarque’s and Stein Haugom Olsen’s definition of perennial and topical themes, and Torsten Pettersson’s and Merere Mazzarella’s definitions of deadbeats have been used in the analysis. The analysis shows that the women in the selected short stories are doomed to defeat. This defeat is expressed in different ways: for the country women as physical or psychological death and for the urban women through a deceptive freedom. Women are associated with modernity by either representing it or by being attracted or alternatively being repulsed by it. In three of the short stories I refer to the women as deadbeats. This only applies to urban-life women. In the short stories that concern agrarian-culture women or country women, the doomed defeat is connected to loss of values and cultures that cannot survive in contemporary society. Based on selected themes I show how topical themes dominate the depictions of urban women, while perennial themes dominate the depictions of country women.
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