‘We have no child at home but me,’ answered Kristin. “‘And you, Kristin – how would you like to offer up this bonny hair and serve Our Lady like these brides I have figured here?’ It is a medieval story about expectations – societal, familial, personal.įrom an early age, Kristin knows what her role is destined to be. Kristin, the prized eldest child of Lavrans and Ragnfrid, is headstrong and open-hearted in a brutal, harsh world where survival is difficult, where social mores are binding, and where women are possessions. “Kristin Lavransdatter” is the story of a woman’s life in 14th century Norway. In a token effort to begin to rectify the situation, I approached Undset’s ‘masterpiece’ – “Kristin Lavransdatter”. A Nobel Laureate, and yet this bookworm had never heard of her until browsing the complete list of Laureates in dismay at how few women appear. Sigrid Undset won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928, one of only 14 female winners (out of 113 Laureates) to this day. “‘is well when we dare not do a thing we think is not good and fair, but not so well when we think a thing not good and fair because we dare not do it.'”
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