Depths of the nordic welfare model in feminine norwegian literary voices - Ana Pojar-Suarasan

he year 2004 marks the largest robbery in Norwegian history. In broad daylight, ten million dollars were stolen from a bank, dozens of shots were fired, and a police officer was killed. But the most amazing fact is that, during all this time, the passers-by thought they were filming; they couldn’t even imagine it was real. This event suddenly implies a glitch in Scandinavian society, which is renowned for the Nordic Model of the welfare state, built on trust among citizens and political institutions, the relationship with nature, and feelings of peace and security. Almost two decades after the incident, Scandinavia’s image is still idyllic from the outside, with the Nordic countries constantly among the top happiest nations in the world, according to most sociological studies, such as the UN’s World Happiness Report, The Legatum Prosperity Index, the OECD Better Life Index, or various articles in the World Database of Happiness1. However, on the inside, reality is much more nuanced, which is also reflected in Norwegian literature. This contrast captured my interest in research that calls into question the Nordic Model of welfare and the notion of a perfect society through the critical perspective of feminine literary voices.

Criticising society has become a traditional task on the writers’ agenda in Norway, echoing from literature’s golden age of Ibsenian times, when the literary objective was to put problems under debate, underlying society’s failures (Brandes 21). The realistic tendency in Scandinavian literature culminated with the critical realism of the Modern Breakthrough in the nineteenth century, when writers would describe the day’s reality in detail and as it was, from a critical and objective perspective, writing in the third person. Women’s oppression, poverty, sexuality, and double standards are among the encountered themes (Tomescu-Baciu 64–68). (from „Introduction”)

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