| Toward the Millennium and since the turn of the 21st century, Norwegian literature has increasingly focused on the theme of the family. Simultaneous to this literary trend, a new trend in contemporary Norwegian literature emerged, what has been termed migrant literature or multicultural literature (however what I will term diaspora narratives or diaspora literature), which expands and redefines what it means to be Norwegian to include those of diverse backgrounds. Several Norwegian authors of immigrant background have situated their work in the space where these two trends intersect. These authors all write, in the Norwegian language, about their upbringing as Norwegian, however, marked with an outsider status. Integral to their Bildung is their relationship with their mothers, a similar maternal figure, or the Norwegian discourse of motherhood.;This dissertation explores how motherhood and motherhood tropes are depicted in some Norwegian diaspora literature and how "the Other mother" is depicted in contemporary Norwegian works written by authors of immigrant background. It begins with a contextualization of Norway's diaspora literature and the public debate surrounding jakten pa den store norske innvandrerromanen [the hunt for the great Norwegian immigrant novel]. Following the first situating chapter is a multi-chapter argument about three different motherhood tropes present in diaspora literature; I refer to these motherhood tropes as: 1) the trope of the cultured mother, 2) the trope of the creative mother, and 3) the appropriation of Henrik Ibsen's female protagonist Nora Helmer (Et dukkehjem [1897, A Doll's House]). Illustrating these tropes shows the presence of a curious, and developing, critique of motherhood found in some of Norway's diaspora literature. The concluding chapter explores one novel, Desiland (2010) by Mala Naveen, which incorporates and challenges these three motherhood tropes by breaking with convention. I argue that these works perform an alternate Norwegian identity---one that calls for a radical renegotiation or remapping of the current paradigm of Norwegianness. |
