Independent People
72 pages • 2-hour read
Halldor K LaxnessIndependent People
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide features discussion of child illness or death, bullying, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and disordered eating.
The Self-Defeating Nature of Absolute Independence
The novel Independent People critiques the role and purpose of “independence” as a value, examining how a stubborn refusal to collaborate with or learn from others can lead to an individual’s destruction. Bjartur of Summerhouses treats his fixed definition of independence as a heroic creed that hardens into a tragic flaw, since his unyielding idea of self-reliance isolates him and brings harm to those around him. Bjartur ties freedom to the absence of debt and guards this rule so tightly that he cuts himself off from the connections that could give his life meaning, and enable him to fulfil his aims of prosperity.
Bjartur believes that “the strongest man is he who stands alone” (395), and uses the line to excuse the coldness that continually shapes his home into a place of privation, where he holds to ideology at the expense of comfort and affection. The book shows how this stance erodes his family life, since he repeatedly puts his principle above the safety of those who depend on him. The novel shows the cruelty and hypocrisy of his behavior in relation to family members, especially women. For Bjartur, independence is a male prerogative, as he thinks: “The man who lives on his own land is an independent man. He is his own master” (13). Bjartur overlooks the fact that he is planning to bring a new wife, Rosa, to Summerhouses and will rely on her company, support, and labor to assist him. Despite his rejection of human connection, networking, and partnership, Bjartur is not intending to live as a hermit; he takes for granted his entitlement to become a husband and father, without considering that this also confers responsibilities on him a traditional breadwinner and protector of the household. His continued refusal to recognize these responsibilities leads to the unhappiness, starvation, and death of his wives and daughter, and his own continued isolation.
Bjartur’s break with his daughter, Ásta Sollilja, is central to the novel’s presentation of this theme. Bjartur casts her out when he hears she is pregnant, even though he has long described her as the “one flower” (xix) in his life. Although the novel shows that unmarried pregnancies are not uncommon in the community and are generally treated humanely by families, Bjartur adopts a hard stance, saying that Ásta has betrayed “his land,” i.e., his sense of pride as a landowner. Thus, when Bjartur sends her into a winter storm, putting his abstract code of honor ahead of the bond he treasures most, the narrative reaches its central example of his prioritization of manufactured ideology over real love. Laxness shows how Bjartur’s pursuit of absolute self-reliance is an extreme version of pride, leading to his self-isolation from human connection and meaning.
The Unrelenting Struggle Against Natural and Supernatural Forces
As realist historical novel, Independent People places the men and women of rural Iceland within the realities of life in the early-20th-century, showing them in a constant fight for survival with the physical world around them and with the weight of ancient mythological or superstitious cultural beliefs. The book’s opening frames Bjartur’s personal story within the epic scope of its historical, cultural, and geographical context, starting with the tale of the fiend Kolumkilli and the witch Gunnvör, whose curse hangs over Summerhouses. As a self-conscious mark of his “independence,” Bjartur meets these natural and supernatural influences with stubborn resolve, and the novel follows how he tries to stand firm despite the realities of life. He mocks the shared past when he refuses to place a stone on Gunnvör’s cairn, exclaiming “…what nonsense these old wives let their heads be stuffed with!” (15). He pushes against the fear that shapes his neighbors’ lives. By refusing to believe that these factors may have an influence on him, as they do on all others in the community, Bjartur behaves as if his willfulness alone can overcome all the obstacles of life as a crofter. This is symptomatic of his lack of pragmatic engagement with the realities of his circumstances, increasingly shown to be a hubristic sense of exceptionalism that will lead to his destitution.
Later, as Rosa dies and Bjartur’s flock dwindles, his certainty toward the supernatural starts to falter. Hardship leaves space for doubt to grow, and the line between superstition and lived suffering becomes harder for him to draw. This fear rises beside the physical battles that fill his days. Sheep plagues such as tapeworm and lungworm rule over the talk of the farmers, and the land never offers rest. The blizzard on the moors shows this struggle at its strongest. Bjartur crawls through the snow “like an animal” (97) and survives only through sheer will and the memory of poetry, which he recites to keep himself awake. When he arrives at a croft for help, the inhabitants are uncertain whether he is “man or devil,” (97) showing that he has figuratively crossed over into the realm of superstition. Laxness ties these strands together by showing how the stories and beliefs of the Icelanders are cultural and psychological responses to the hardness of the land. Bjartur fights the weather and his own mind at the same time, since each setback gives shape to the suppressed fears that haunt him.
Poetry as a Tool for Survival, Escapism, and Meaning
In Independent People, Laxness shows how literature, especially poetry can mirror a hard life while also offering a way to rise above it. In intertwining verse stanzas, traditional literary references and poetic discourse through hit novel, Laxness reflects the way in which poetic composition and oration was a long-established part of life for ordinary Icelandic people. In this way, the poetry is a response to the lived experiences and hardships of the crofters in order to further survival and provide escapism and enriched meaning. This value is emphasized by the novel’s sardonic treatment of the Mistress of Myri and her poetry, which praises the beauty of Icelandic life “with as much feeling as a tourist on a picnic,” and idealizes the lives of the crofters from a position of privilege and hypocrisy. In Independent People, the true value and purpose of poetry is as an expression of Iceland’s ordinary laboring class.
Laxness uses this interest in poetry to help characterize his protagonist and his interactions with the world. Bjartur’s strict attachment to traditional Icelandic verse reflects the limits of his emotional world, while the larger shape of the book, which hints that his son may someday write it, points toward a wider and more generous idea of art. Bjartur relies on poetry for endurance. In the blizzard he recites old ballads with intricate patterns, and the demands of these lines steady his mind against the cold. Yet the narrator notes that this poetry is “technically so complex that it could never attain any noteworthy content; and thus it was with his life itself” (239). His devotion to form over feeling echoes his belief in independence, since both habits protect him but shut him off from realizing the true purpose of his endeavors.
Ásta Sollilja’s interest in “modern poetry” (437) marks a contrast to Bjartur’s rigid ballads and shows how a desire for emotional expression sets her apart from him. When Bjartur sends Ásta a verse by him naming her “his flower” as an oblique half-apology, she angrily rejects it, and this is a symbolic rejection of his approach to life. As she is pregnant by—and briefly engaged to—the modern poet and teacher who first exposed her to this poetry, the novel sets these two styles of poetry against each other in parallel to the tensions between the characters. Through her attitude to this poetry, Ásta asserts herself to be Bjartur’s “one flower” (483). The tragic arc is emphasized by Ásta being reconciled to her father only on the point of death.
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