Thesis on "Fugitive Crosses His Tracks Aksel Sandemose"

Thesis 5 pages (2065 words) Sources: 1

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Fugitive Crosses His Tracks

Aksel Sandemose is one of the foremost exponents of modernism in Norwegian literature and one of the first writers to use psychoanalysis as a major thematic component. In his 1933 novel entitled a Fugitive Crosses His Tracks, Sandemose examines thirty-four-year-old Espen Arnakke's life in the fictional town of Jante. Sandemose made a huge contribution to the Norwegian language as a "Jante" has come to mean any small town and the "Law of Jante," a set of unspoken rules for social control, which refers to the type of norms that are created to make a person limit his or her aspirations for fear of offending a community that values mediocrity (Sjavik 226). His novel is a first person account that offers an engaging psychological analysis, which could be very useful for psychologists to study as a way of understanding man's unconscious mental processes as well as for understanding the dynamics of society in the town of Jante, which may have nurtured an inferiority complex in Espen. Jante is directly linked to Espen's feelings of inadequacy, which is what spurred him to kill his former friend.

Sandemose has Espen looking back on his actions as a 17-year-old murderer, searching his soul for understanding of the different influencing factors that made him who he is. Sandemose draws on Alfred Adler's brand of psychoanalysis (specifically Adler's concept of the inferiority complex), portraying Espen's effort as a sort of self-analysis that is given in a rambling and disconnected shape that is comparable to a clinical narrative (Sjavik 226). Understanding the ideas behind Jante's Law and the influences it has on people is critical in making sense of Sandemose's depiction of Espen Arnakke and his soul-searching journey. The laws of Jante are:

1. Thou shalt not believe that thou art something.

2. Thou shalt not believe that thou art as good as us.

3. Thou shalt not believe that thou art more than us.

4. Thou shalt not fancy thyself better than us.

5. Thou shalt not believe thou knowest more than us.

6. Thou shalt not believe thou art greater than us.

7. Thou shalt not believe that thou art a worthwhile human being.

8. Thou shalt not laugh at us.

9. Thou shalt not believe that anyone is concerned with thee.

10. Thou shalt not believe thou canst teach us anything.

(a Fugitive Crosses His Tracks, 1936: 77).

While these laws look morally correct at first glance in that they teach to be humble in relation to other human beings, these laws have repressed individuality in the town as Jante does not accept any sort of peculiarity and is constantly instilling feelings of inferiority in the citizens. Espen turns into a jealous and malicious person because of these laws. Through Espen's introspections, the reader learns that Espen was forced to conform and become a person who he wasn't, which can't help but bring up feelings of inferiority. He cannot be the person he feels he wants to be and the murder is an act against his own nature. Espen did not come into the world as a sinner, but Jante made him one. Sandemose argues that the "good citizen" beating the drum is a victim of Jante's law as much as the person who must conform against his or her own true nature.

Sandemose's text implies that Espen found Jante wherever he went, which leads one to believe that all life and places are the same and that one can't control his or her own fate. While the consequential theory might be that Espen found Jante wherever he went, perhaps it is more likely that Espen carried Jante with him wherever he went and thus imposed those beliefs on those around him.

Sandemose's novel poses the ultimate search for the influencing factors that shape a man's overall character as well as his behavior. Espen's journey therefore becomes a mental autobiography that is not about a fugitive who is running from the law as we commonly think of when hearing the word fugitive, but rather, a fugitive in the sense of a soliloquy of life's patterns, exorcising his demons along the way in an attempt to return to the purity of boyhood. The interesting thing, however, is that Espen never really had an pure boyhood as it was so imbued with the somewhat stifling views of Jante and the laws that Jante created. The word fugitive could also be taken to mean that Espen is on the run from his past, he is trying to escape and get back to a place where things made sense in the world and when his soul was not in utter turmoil. Adler (2009) posits that certain degrees of vanity and ambition are inherent in every human being and they are necessary for one's quest to attain superiority or reach a specific goal. Jante taught Espen that these qualities -- vanity and ambition -- are wrong and thus his social development was stunted.

The evil in the story comes from the small town of Jante where Espen grew up. Espen was raised in poverty, his childhood unhappy, yet even when he tries to leave Jante he ends up finding it wherever he goes. He left Jante and became a sailor, which sent him to the United States. He then went to Canada and married and finally settled down in Norway. Across terrains and seas, Espen is faced with the ugliness of Jante that seems to become a symbol for the universal law of life -- perhaps stating that things are the same wherever you go. However, as mentioned, it is not unreasonable to think that Espen was the embodiment of those laws, so he could not escape no matter how hard he tried and thus he would always be a fugitive of life.

Espen sees the man who stole his woman as the personification of Jante and everything that it stands for and thus he murders the man, feeling very little -- if any -- regret or remorse. In fact, it seems like Espen uses Jante and its embodiment of values he detests as a way of excusing what he did because he loathes the values so intensely; it is almost as if he felt he was acting righteously when he murdered the man. However, Espen cannot deny the guilt later on in life and thus tries to make sense of how he could have done what he did -- and rationalized it as well. He tries to understand how a boy can go from boyhood to murderer so effortlessly, which is a question that allows the reader to see into the psyche of a murderer and, perhaps, understand why and how a person is driven to kill another human being, forcing us to look at the factors of environment and community and cultural norms as part of the greater picture (however, this is not to state that Danish customs encourage murder or any criminal actions).

It was not just Jante that Espen hated, but rather, it was everything that happened within this town including his family life. When Espen recalls telling his father that he had not asked to be born, he says, "Father looked calmly at me, stroked his beard, and said in an even voice: 'Nor did anyone, I believe, ever exactly send for you in particular'" (Sandemose 1936). In contemplating this response from Espen's father, the reader can easily see how his father personified the values that Espen saw as ugly. Espen sees pettiness and narrow-mindedness in every corner of his boyhood existence, which is how he forms 'Jante Law'. Espen's father's remark of not asking for Espen in particular is indicative of a sense that his father wasn't thrilled with what he was given in a son. In other words, Espen was not special to anyone -- not even his own father and, in keeping with the rules of Jante's Law, his father needed to let Espen know that he was not better than anyone else -- any son would have fulfilled the role of son.

In examining the feeling that would go along with basically being told by your own parent that you are not special, it is not hard to see how Espen could look at human life as being insignificant -- or not special -- as well. Jealousy, as mentioned, is also one of the motifs of Sandemose's tale as the general feeling in the town of Jante is one of pettiness, envy and subordination -- that is, everyone, by trying to encourage and enforce equality through their "laws" has really made everyone feel subordinate to everyone else. There is a resounding warning that one should not try to become better than everyone else and this has affected Espen as he cannot stand the thought of someone taking something away from him (i.e. his girl). This void from his loss needs to be sated in some way, which may be why Espen turns to murder.… READ MORE

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