Mother Figure in the Modern Swedish Literature about Migrants as Factor of Cultural Identity Formation

Abstract

The study aims to shed light on how the Mother figure influences cultural identity formation in the Swedish novels “Can You Say Shibboleth?” (Sw. “Kan du säga schibbolet?”) by M. Bakhtiari and “Svenhammed’s Diaries” (Sw. “Svenhammeds journaler”) by Z. Bečević. The article examines characteristic features of hybrid identity and also defines women’s role in cultural experience transmission. Scientific novelty of the study lies in approaching the modern Swedish literature from the viewpoint of the postcolonial theory. For the first time, the researcher has identified a feature of the postcolonial discourse in the Swedish works, which is emphasis on deep connection between the Mother and cultural identity. As a result, it is determined that nature of communication with the mother and the older generation of women influences the protagonists’ cultural identity formation.

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About this article

Publication history

• Received: April 7, 2021.
• Published: May 31, 2021.

Keywords

• постколониализм
• культурная идентичность
• фигура Матери
• современная шведская литература
• литература мигрантов
• postcolonialism
• cultural identity
• Mother figure
• modern Swedish literature
• migrant literature

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© 2021 The Author(s)
© 2021 Gramota Publishing, LLC

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)