"People who aren't independent aren't people." : An analysis of the consequences of freedom for the women in Halldór Laxness' Independent People

This paper studies the consequences that one person’s priority of freedom can have for the people around them through the lens of Bjartur in Fria män (Independent People) (1934-1935) by Halldór Laxness. Specifically, it studies the consequences Bjartur’s priority of freedom has through how it affects his first wife Rosa and daughter Asta Sollilja. The theoretical ground for this paper is laid by Simone de Beauvoir with her book The Second Sex (1949) and Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980). With the help of these two theories, I implement Beauvoir’s terms of transcendence and immanence as well as Kristeva’s abjection including subject and object which they both discuss. I use these to study Bjartur’s relation to his wife Rosa and daughter Asta which develop in the book. As a result, I have found that freedom for Bjartur is restricting for those around him. He has a very strong idea of what freedom is and means which only he himself seems to achieve. This leaves out Rosa and Asta Sollilja who are not able to attain the same freedom.