Individual and collective behaviour in Människor kring en bro and De Teleurgang van de Waterhoek

Abstract

At first sight, Manniskor kring en bro (1935) by Josef Kjellgren (1907-1948) and DeTeleurgang van de Waterhoek (1927) by Stijn Streuvels (1871-1969) seem to be very differentnovels, although both narratives depict to a certain extent the building of a bridge as a step inthe modernization process. Kjellgren's characters are at work in urban surroundings –Stockholm – Streuvels's figures build a bridge in a rural area in Flanders. Careful readingreveals a significant number of structural and factual similarities. On the back cover ofManniskor kring en bro the book is presented as a 'kollektiv arbetsroman', in other words, acollective or community novel, a qualification that applies to Streuvels's novel too, although ithas never been presented as a collective novel. In this article, I will discuss both factual andstructural similarities as well as the differences between the two novels, and I will do so byusing various approaches, one of the techniques being the use of copular clauses. In the past,Streuvels's novel has been studied time and again from a psychological perspective. Mira, oneof the novel's characters, has not only tantalized the novel's male characters, but she has alsomesmerized many scholars. By comparing the novel to Kjellgren's narrative - especially byfocusing on collective behaviour and collective characteristics - I will try to show that thenovel's many layers can only be exposed by highlighting structural features. Furthermore, theuse of copular clauses will shed light on the individual and collective layers of Kjellgren's novel.