”Babes in the wood?”

Intertekstuaalisuus ja subteksti Solveig von Schoultzin novellissa ”Även dina kameler”

• Kristina Malmio Helsingin yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74700

Abstract

”Babes in the wood?” – Intertextuality and subtext in the short story ”Även dina kameler” by Solveig von Schoultz

In my article I examine three central intertexts in the short story “Även dina kameler” (Even your camels) written by the Finland-Swedish author Solveig von Schoultz in 1965. The short story includes several, “odd” intertextual fragments, which all seem to point at a secret of some kind, hidden from the reader. In my analysis I use the definition of the term “subtext”, put forward by the literary critic Michael Riffaterre in his book Fictional Truth, in order to show how the mysteriousness of the text is constructed, how the intertexts build up the “subtext” of the short story and what the secret is that the story both hides and signals of. This way one gets a picture of how the seemingly plain and realistic text is actually built up in an effective and elaborate way and characterised by high textual density.

The analyzed intertexts all relate to certain topics: a mother, who is distant or dead, a woman’s identity and changes in it, and how words get or loose their meaning. All in all, the short story shows both on its explicit and hidden level how the death of the protagonist’s mother – the hidden secret of the text – has lead to the creation of a language of one’s own. The significance of language is, then, connected to loss. The strange words and allusions the woman protagonist uses also put forward the metalinguistic and poetic message of the story; the importance of language, and how language can both carry meanings, and become empty of meaning. In this way the story is even connected to the author’s own enterprise.