Geography and Power: Mapping The Murderer’s Ape

Tatjana Kielland Samoilow

doi:10.1007/s10583-022-09479-8

Abstract

Geography occupies a central role in The Murderer’s Ape (2014/2017), a Swedish children’s novel by Jakob Wegelius. Drawing on theories of critical literary geography, the article is an analysis of the novel’s geography and an exploration of how the narrative shapes and produces place and space. The analysis shows that the narrative both represents and challenges colonial power structures through the production of place and space. Methodologically, three complementary approaches are utilized: analyzing the visual maps in the endpapers, visualizing the novel’s geography by means of GIS-generated maps, and mapping the verbal narrative.

Highlights

My eyes searched here and there and eventually found Bhapur
I worked out that it must be about eight hundred miles from Karachi to Bhapur, and if the train kept a speed of thirty-five miles an hour we would be there within twenty-four hours. (Jakob Wegelius, 2014/2017, p. 278)
The searching eyes belong to Sally Jones, the gorilla narrator of the Swedish novel The Murderer’s Ape by Wegelius (2014/2017)

Summary

Introduction

My eyes searched here and there and eventually found Bhapur. It was a small princedom almost at the top of the map and at the foot of the Himalayas, in the part of India called the Punjab. The searching eyes belong to Sally Jones, the gorilla narrator of the Swedish novel The Murderer’s Ape by Wegelius (2014/2017). She analyzes the novel’s prequel The Legend of Sally Jones with reference to The Murderer’s Ape and reads Wegelius’ universe as a critique of colonialism and a rewriting of the adventure novel genre

Results

Conclusion