Bjartur

Bjartur is the central character / protagonist. Bjartur was a laborer working for the Bailiff at Rauthsmyri for 18 years before saving up enough money to buy his own land, which he names Summerhouses at the outset of the novel. Bjartur’s central personality trait is his excessive desire to be independent of all other human beings, at all costs. This characteristic presents itself in several ways, notably: his disdain for accepting offers of charity (as when the Women’s Institute buy his family a cow); his preference for focusing his resources on maintaining the financial viability of Summerhouses rather than protecting the welfare of his family (as when he kills the cow whose milk feeds his children because it is eating grass he wishes to reserve for his sheep); and his difficulty feeling and expressing gratitude for the acts of kindness and support that people around him try to...