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Georgs manligblivande i Sigfrid Siwertz Mälarpirater

Abstract

Better Equipped Than Others? Georg’s Path to Manhood in Sigfrid Siwertz’ Novel Mälarpirater.

In this article I argue that Sigfrid Siwertz’ Mälarpirater (Pirates of Lake Mälaren, 1911) is dominated by two main discourses. The first, as mentioned previously in other research, is Henri Bergson’s philosophy of free will (as Siwertz conceives of it). The other concerns the construction of the boy, and derives from the idea of a distinct boy culture and the concept of the boy as gentlesavage. In his article “Boy Culture: Middle-Class Boyhood in Nineteenth-Century America”, historian E. Anthony Rotundo explores a “free nation” of boys, a cultural world with its own rituals and values (hierarchic, violent etc.). This “free nation” is subject to its own boundaries, is located outside the domestic world of women, and is free of adult intervention. The boy as a gentle savage features as a central character in “boyology”, which in Kenneth B. Kidd’s Making American Boys (2004), is described as a discourse comprising descriptive and prescriptive writing on boyhood across a variety of genres. The “boyologists” of the early twentieth century reworked themes and tropes they picked up from the “American Boy” novel (Aldrich, Twain etc.). Foremost, these writers explored the idea of the wilderness of boys, a temporarily primitive period, as a necessary step in becoming a man. This is also an idea that pervades Mälarpirater, in which the different events that occur during the boy’s adventure are described as essential in Georg’s development towards manhood. Simultaneously, this idea collides with Siwertz’s Bergsonian discourse, resulting in a division of the gentle savage into one, more well-behaved, individual (Georg) and one more wild individual (Fabian). The rascal Fabian is regarded as a necessary stepping stone for Georg on his way to manliness; Fabian introduces him to boy culture and educates him, and after this “work” is done and Georg has beaten him up, he disappears. In explanation of this division Siwertz describes Fabian as a typical representative of the lower class, while Georg comes from a middle class home, to which he returns in the end. 222222222222222222222222222222222222