The image of the father in the creative work of Jonas Hassen Khemiri

Abstract

The study aims to determine how the lack of strength and masculinity manifested by the father impacts the protagonists in modern Swedish literature as exemplified by Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s novels. The study is original in that it is the first to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the image of the father in the writer’s creative work from the perspective of the psychology of parenthood, psychoanalysis and postcolonial research. The paper attempts to summarise the available theoretical knowledge about the influence of a father figure on the behaviour strategy of the younger generation and also traces the image of the father in J. H. Khemiri’s four works ‘One Eye Red’ (Sw. ‘Ett öga rött’, 2003), ‘Montecore: The Silence of the Tiger’ (Sw. ‘Montecore: en unik tiger’, 2006), ‘Everything I Don’t Remember’ (Sw. ‘Allt jag inte minns’, 2015) and ‘The Family Clause’ (Sw. ‘Pappaklausulen’, 2018). As a result, it has been proved that against the background of the evolution of the father’s image – from weak to absent, the protagonists are experiencing more and more doubt, lack of self-confidence, difficulties in achieving professional goals, show an inability to take responsibility, thereby repeating the unsuccessful scenario of the father’s fate.

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About this article

Publication history

• Received: July 8, 2023.
• Published: September 6, 2023.

Keywords

• шведская литература
• Ю. Х. Кемири
• фигура отца
• отцовская депривация
• постколониальные исследования
• Swedish literature
• J. H. Khemiri
• father figure
• paternal deprivation
• postcolonial research

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)