Analysis Of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo By Stieg Larsson

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“Thirteen percent of women in Sweden have been subjected to aggravated sexual assault outside a sexual relationship” (Larsson 103); epigraphs such as this preface the four sections of the book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, documenting statistics of violence and abuse against women in Sweden. Such discriminatory attitudes define the generic stereotype of women implemented within the work, and are portrayed through experiences of female characters who both embody and break the norm. Stieg Larsson draws upon the harsh reality that is gender inequality and employs it as one of the central themes conveyed, thus exploring the unjust aspects of authoritative corruption that influence characterization and plot development.
Lisbeth Salander, an …show more content…

Larsson illustrates the primary male stereotype as corruptive and manipulative, condemning them as malicious creatures who seek to exploit as reflected in Martin, who was raised to have a grotesque perspective of male superiority and therefore a hatred towards women, providing the reasoning for his horrific acts. When Blomkvist discovers the truth behind the murders and is consequently trapped by Martin, he begins to brag about his achievements and references the “godlike feeling of having absolute control over someone’s life and death” (Larsson 489). Martin feels that as a superior male figure, he has strength over the powerless women he devotes time to tracking down. Although Blomkvist credits Martin’s deranged philosophy to his history of child abuse, Lisbeth argues that his crimes do not have the means to be rationalized by any excuse, stating that “it’s not an insane serial killer who read his Bible wrong. It’s just a common or garden bastard who hates women” (Larsson 309). By defining Martin as a ‘common bastard who hates women’, she references how gender discrimination happens to be such a daily occurrence that such men are ubiquitous within Swedish society. Society is perceived by her to be lacking in accountability for the severe violence that happens to women, and therefore she channels her anger into justifying what the government fails to act upon and rectifying those

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