The Figure of the Prostitute in Scandinavian Women’s Literature of The Modern Breakthrough

Abstract

Despite the fact that prostitution and the figure of the prostitute as represented in Scandinavian women’s literature of the last decades of the nineteenth-century is a significant topic, a systematic study on the role of prostitution in Scandinavian women’s literature of The Modern Breakthrough is largely lacking. This article, in which prostitution is conceptualised in the broadest meaning of the word, analyses the literary representations of the figure of the prostitute in the novel Lucie (1888) written by the Dano-Norwegian Amalie Skram, Rikka Gan (1904) by the Norwegian Ragnhild Jølsen, and the Swedish novella Aurore Bunge (1883) by Anne Charlotte Leffler. By means of close textual analysis, this article analyses how prostitution is represented in these three works and explores what factors were at play in causing the protagonist to be ‘fallen’ and with what consequences. The findings highlight the psychological and social implications of three unique forms of prostitution: prostitution within the marriage, a socially constructed form of prostitution as a shadow hanging over a marriage, and a relational form of prostitution parallel to a marriage.