The Girl Who Played With Fire

When Lisbeth returns to Sweden, she uses her new wealth to buy a new apartment, though she does not get rid of her mother’s apartment on Lundagatan—the one in which she has lived since beginning her guardianship with Palmgren at age 18. Her new apartment is near Mosebacke Torg, a park in Stockholm on Fiskargatan, and Blomkvist finds out that Lisbeth paid 25 million kronor for it. While the Lundagatan apartment represents Lisbeth’s previous life, the Mosebacke apartment represents her renewal and her efforts to overcome her trauma. The Lundagatan apartment was filled with furniture and memories from Lisbeth’s childhood, including Zala’s abuses against Agneta and “All The Evil,” and Lisbeth is not willing to let go of these things yet. Instead, she sells half of the apartment to Mimmi, making a symbolic effort to let someone else into her life.

However, the Mosebacke apartment remains empty, and Lisbeth hastily fills it with generic IKEA furniture to create the semblance of normalcy. When Blomkvist finds it, he notes the “deserted, almost eerily empty corridors and rooms,” adding, “At the centre of the apartment was a wonderfully bright living room with an open fireplace, but Salander seemed never to have had a fire” (449). The Mosebacke apartment therefore stands as a symbol for Lisbeth’s psyche and life, which remains empty of everything but the necessities, but the very fact that Lisbeth has carved out this space for herself suggests that she may be able to progress once she overcomes her past. Within this tableau, the fact that Lisbeth has never had a fire is also symbolic, as the hearth can often be interpreted as a figurative representation of family and friends. Although she lacks this advantage now, she can still grow and build a fire for herself in her new space.