SOURCE: Norseng, Mary Kay. “A House of Mourning.” Scandinavian Studies 69, no. 1 (winter 1997): 52–83.

In the following essay, Norseng discusses the presence of children in Smilla's Sense of Snow.

“Our house was the house of mourning. … Elizabeth was sad and desponding. … The first of these sorrows which are sent to wean us from the earth, had visited her, and its dimming influences quenched her dearest smiles.”

“Who can follow an animal which can traverse the sea of ice, and inhabit caves and dens where no man would venture to intrude?”

—Frankenstein

As Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne [Smilla's Sense of Snow] begins to end, if never to resolve itself, Smilla Qaavigaaq Jaspersen sets sail for an arctic sea far, far away. In that sea lies an island; on that island there is a glacial cathedral; in that cathedral there is a lake; in that lake there is a black...