Women, Enclosed Spaces, and Islands

Intertextual Connections in Anni Kytömäki’s Kivitasku

Authors

• Hannele Sand Tampereen yliopisto https://orcid.org/0009-0001-5703-5170

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30665/av.144646

Keywords:

intertextuality, enclosed spaces, women's literature, island narratives, ekphrasis

Abstract

In this article, I examine gendered spatiality in Anni Kytömäki’s novel Kivitasku (2017) from the perspective of intertextuality. In the novel, female characters seek to escape confined spaces, such as a room or a house, to an isolated or an exotic island. I analyze Kivitasku’s allusions to Anglo-American literature, in which the motif of liberation from confined spaces is central, as well as to the tale of Aino in Kalevala. I approach Kytömäki’s novel as part of a tradition of women’s writing that explores gendered structures and thematizes the shattering minds, asking how the novel utilizes and modifies this tradition. On one hand, through its intertextual connections, the novel depicts gendered structures that appear constricting to women. On the other hand, however, the novel, through intertextuality and ekphrasis, envisions trajectories of women’s liberation and agency, which are in particular associated with the notion of writing as a type of community.