Stig Dagerman

Biography

• Stig Dagerman (October 5, 1923 – November 5, 1954) was one of Sweden’s most prolific writers of the 1940s.

• He worked for the anarchosyndicalist newspaper “Arbetaren” (The Worker) and worked as a journalist in Germany for the newspaper “Expressen” in 1946…

biography, cont.

• …a collection of his articles from this period was published under the English title of “German Autumn”.

• Dagerman wrote several novels, including “The Snake” and “The Burnt Child”, as well as a collection of short stories, “The Games of the Night”.

biography, cont.

• The last years of his life, during the early 1950s, were marked by depression, and Stig Dagerman took his own life in 1954.

“To Kill a child”

• One of his best-known stories is “To Kill a Child.” It is an extremely well crafted short story, which shows his skills to great effect.

• It creates an atmosphere of awful acceptance; a realisation of the irresolvable nature of personal tragedy.

excerpt…

“It was a gentle day, and the sun was slanting across the plain. Soon the bells would ring, for it was Sunday. Two children had come upon a path between fields of rye – a path they had never trodden before; and the windows of the three villages of the plain glinted in the sun.” (in The Games of Night, Quartet Encounters, pg.173)

Structure

• The story is structured in a beautifully simple way.

• Three narrative spaces are set up within the initial omniscient view, the view of all three villages on the plain; and we are bounced between the first and third, then second and third.

structure, cont.

• It is clear that the story is heading toward a crisis point, which is to occur in the third village. Due to this structure, the crisis seems an inevitability; we can’t but move forward – are literally driven forward – until our expectations are met. For we are told: “It was the happy morning of an evil day, for on this day a child was to be killed in the third village, by a happy man.” (To Kill a Child, pg.173)

structure, cont.

• The logical conclusion of the story’s movement, however, does not spoil our enjoyment of the story.

• I think, perhaps, this is because ‘enjoyment’ would be quite the wrong word here. Dagerman’s story is concerned with the nature of irreconcilable grief.

Imagery

• In “To Kill a Child”, Dagerman rarely uses similes or metaphors, though there are one or two recurring motifs that run through the story.

• One of these is a form of litotes, of saying what has not happened. Often the reason for doing this is to highlight something that will be of importance later.

excerpt…

“No shadow passed over the kitchen, and yet the man who was going to kill the child was standing by a red petrol pump in the first village. He was a happy man.” (To Kill a Child, pg.173)

imagery, cont.

• Later, he writes:

“No shadow fell across the car, and the shiny bumper had no dents in it, nor was it red with blood.” (To Kill a Child, pg.174)

• All the time, Dagerman is telling us what is going to happen. We can be in no doubt.

Analysis:

• Doesn’t knowing what is going to happen spoil the ending?

• Dagerman seems to take the view that it is okay to guess what is going to happen; what the reader doesn’t know is how it is going to happen.

Analysis:

• Nor does the reader appreciate, perhaps, that as the story builds to a crescendo an observation about our experience of tragedy is being built up around us.

• Dagerman drops us into the heads of each character, into the midst of plans and hopes for the future, a future that for the little boy will not occur.

excerpt…

“Through the open windows the girl in the front seat could hear what he said; she shut her eyes, and when she did that she could see the sea and the man beside her in the boat.” (To Kill a Child, pg.173)

Analysis:

• Everyone in the story is content with their own dream of the future.

• Dagerman seems to be saying that tragedy is often violent and unexpected. That we are all fragile, all vulnerable.

• Indeed, at the point of crisis the author intrudes…

excerpt…

“For life is ordered in so pitiless a fashion that one minute before a happy man kills a child he is still happy, and one minute before a woman screams with horror she may have her eyes shut and be dreaming of the sea, and for the last minute of a child’s life the parents of that child may be sitting in the kitchen waiting for sugar…” (To Kill a Child, pg.175)

Style

• As a result of his career in journalism, it is not – perhaps – surprising that Dagerman uses the technique of breaking off from his narrative to directly address his readers.

• This technique snaps us out of the descriptive into more psychological ground, a technique that was already a feature of his journalism.

style, cont.

• The focus in “To Kill a Child” is always on the people who inhabit its various spaces. Just as the story steps through three spaces, so too do its inhabitants. The couple in the car are moving towards the child who is moving; his parents are stationary. It is the movement of car and child that will collide, forming the crisis point.

Conclusion

• At the end of the story, there are no more numbered villages, only villages. The shadows finally establish themselves:

“…and in all the villages they pass through they see not a single happy person. All the shadows are very dark…” (To Kill a Child, pg.176)

Conclusion

• “To Kill a child” is, I think, one of the most beautifully crafted short stories I have read. It uses a relatively simple structure to great effect.

• This and other stories by Stig Dagerman can be found in Quartet Encounter’s edition of “Games of the Night” (trans. Naomi Walford).

The end.

“But so pitiless is life to him who has killed a child, that afterwards everything is too late.” (To Kill a Child, pg.176).