Sauve

by Alfhild Agrell

Stockholm, fin du XIXe siècle. Dans un foyer de la moyenne bourgeoisie, Viola, la vingtaine, est depuis cinq ans l’épouse soumise d’Oscar, un employé de banque jouisseur et joueur. Sous leur toit règne en maître la mère d’Oscar, la « femme du recteur », qui a investi la maison. Résignée, Viola ne vit que pour son fils, Alf, un petit garçon à la santé fragile. La « maison de poupée » de Viola est ébranlée quand on apprend qu’Oscar doit rembourser une dette de jeu, et qu’il n’a pas d’argent. Et si Viola en avait, elle ? Pourrait-elle reprendre le pouvoir et s’émanciper de la domination masculine ?

110 pages, Paperback

Published October 10, 2016

About the author

Alfhild Teresia Agrell (January 14, 1849 in Härnösand, Ångermanland –November 8, 1923 in Flen) was a Swedish writer and playwright.

She temporarily used the pseudonyms Thyra, Lovisa Petterqvist and Stig Stigson, but she soon begun to use her own name, which was unusual for a woman; other famed female Swedish playwrights of the century, such as the sisters Louise and Jeanette Granberg, both used male pseudonyms. The subject that she concentrated on, sexual double standards, was very shocking for her time.

Alfhild Agrell was an important contributor to the cause of gender equality in regards of sexuality; in her work, she handles the questions and consequences of sexual injustice, the sexual double standards such as the fact that a woman is subjected to contempt when she does the same thing as a man in sexual matters, the questions of having "a bad reputation", the questions of the blame put on the woman and not the man when a child is born out of marriage, and the difficulties when a woman of the people and a man of the upper classes falls in love and the consequences of such a relationship.

(from Wikipedia)