SOURCE: Weiss, Hanna Kalter. “‘Myten om Människorna’: The Myth of Modern Man in Pär Lagerkvist's Novels.” Scandinavica 26, no. 1 (May 1987): 13-29.

In the following essay, Weiss traces Lagerkvist's use of mythology in his work.

Pär Lagerkvist can rightly be called a maker of modern myth. Drawing from ancient and medieval sources, he recreates these into his own myth of modern man and his dilemma. Lagerkvist's hero is the unbeliever on a constant search for the meaning of life. He is the ugly ‘dwarf’ on Odysseys to the ‘Holy Land’ of forgiveness which, he feels, he does not deserve, but which may eventually come to him through the selfless love of Woman. The creation of such myth places Lagerkvist on the level of the great mythmakers of the twentieth century. Already in his early short stories, especially in ‘Paradiset’ and ‘Myten om människorna,’ Lagerkvist shows his...