Gunnar’s Daughter, a Romanticist book written by the Norwegian Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset (1882-1949), is a slender but powerful and emotionally-charged novel that I read for my Romanticism to Modernism literature class. The story takes place in a mysterious, strange, and alluring past: eleventh-century Norway during the age of the Vikings. This time, as lyrically portrayed by Undset, is one of violence, harsh weather and landscapes, loneliness, and male dominance. To be too soft-hearted in such an era was to meet your death, and if you became ill or made enemies with the wrong people, you could expect murder on the horizon. Undset’s main character, Vigdis Gunnarsdatter, is written as a strong and assertive woman who exerts what power she has in a satisfying way.
The story itself is one of rape, trauma, loss, and love, all typical elements that are common and used to evoke strong emotional responses in readers. But the flow of the story, the development of the characters, and the emotions that Undset describes are so convincingly written, and the love story is so complex, that these cliché elements shine with their best qualities in Undset’s novel. The story is simple, straightforward, and easy to read, but never have I read a more realistic story of love and loss.
Keep in mind that this is a Romanticist—and not at all a romantic—novel. A Romanticist novel is characterized by strong emotions like love and horror, as well as natural tones and images. The novel begins with the star-crossed meeting of Vigdis and Ljot at the manor owned by Vigdis’ family. Vigdis and Ljot fall in love in a matter of days, more and more so after each volatile, argumentative conversation. When Ljot asks Vigdis to marry him, Vigdis almost says yes, and knows that she would have said yes if a particular event never happened.
That event was the rape of Vigdis at the hands of Ljot. This one small scene is the climax of the novel that colors everything that follows. Critics have said that Vigdis’ response to the rape—her withdrawal from the people around her, her change in personality, and the inability to forgive—is one of the most realistic depictions of such a trauma in all literature. Such a claim is, in my opinion, not far off.
After the traumatic rape, the story continues in heart-rending fashion. Ljot tries to make a life for himself with another woman, has children who later tragically drown, but his thoughts are endlessly consumed with desire for Vigdis and shame at what he did to her. Vigdis, impregnated by the rape, gives birth and leaves the infant boy to die in the forest. She later learns that the infant was found and raised near her father’s manor, and after the ransacking of her manor by the terrible sons of Arne, she flees with the boy and learns to love the child she hated and once left for dead. Vigdis’ strength of character, despite an occurrence of rape that might have shattered many other women, allows her to live strongly and freely well into old age.
The poignancy of this story lies in the fact that Ljot never stopped loving Vigdis. Despite her intense and sustained hatred, Vigdis never stopped loving Ljot, either. But because of the rift that the rape left between the two, and despite Ljot’s begging and pleading to the very end, the story ends on a bleak, tragic note of unrequited love and pain.
Ljot is a character that at first I hated as much as Vigdis did, but by the last chapters of the book I had, unwittingly, come to care for Ljot and hope for a reconciliation. Such is the skill of Undset’s writing, even in translation, that she can make you care for a character that has done such a despicable deed. Such skill in character development and progression of plot deserves a leisurely read from anyone, and so I highly recommend Gunnar’s Daughter if you’re prepared for the tragedy that unfolds in its story.
Charlotte Lenox is majoring in English at Drexel, and is a transfer student from the University of Alaska Southeast. She was born and raised in Juneau, Alaska.