Abstract
‘‘To distinguish true from false love: Manly and unmanly bodies in Martha Sandwall-Bergstrom’s Kulla-Gulla series.’’ The protagonist Gulla in Martha Sandwall-Bergstrom’s (1913-2000) Kulla-Gulla series (1945-51) encounters ’’true’’ and ’’false’’ love through two men, Tomas Tomasson and Ivan Malma. The hypothesis of this article is that true love is placed in a manly body and false love in an unmanly body. Tomas’ and Ivan’s manliness and unmanliness are constructed through characteristics which are marked by different power categories, such as gender, age, class, ‘‘race’’ and functionality. Therefore an intersectional perspective is used. I find that Tomas and Ivan have similar social positions except for their different classes. Tomas’ body is portrayed as manly, mobile and warm, whereas Ivan’s body is characterized as unmanly, immobile and cold. Tomas evokes love in Gulla, whereas Ivan arouses lust as well as ambivalence. Tomas’ manly body functions as a signal for true love and guides the reader as well as Gulla in distinguishing his true from Ivan’s false love. When Gulla chooses Tomas, she is defined as an adult. Keywords: Martha Sandwall-Bergstrom, girls’ books, love, masculinity, intersectionality (Published: 11 December 2013) Citation: Barnboken tidskrift for barnlitteraturforskning/Journal of Children’s Literature Research, Vol. 36, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/clr.v36i0.23343
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