Home In Moberg's The Immigrants

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In Moberg's series The Emigrant Novels, or Utvandrarserien in Swedish, the concept of home plays a pivotal role, as the characters leave one home to find another on the other side of the world. This essay will focus on the first two novels in the series. In the first novel, called The Emigrants (1949), Moberg tells the story of a group of Swedish homesteaders as they decide to emigrate to the United States of America; the New World, around the 1850s. Three families endure hardships in their home country of Sweden, including dry years, wet years, cold winters and late springs; all causing their crops to fail and their children to starve. Multiple years go by where they try everything they can to better their lives, but their patience runs out. When one of the children …show more content…

It is said that the soil in America is rich and hardly any land has been claimed, so the family hopes to find a better life there. With two other families, they leave Sweden in early spring. For over two months they live on the ship on the ocean, where they face boredom, sickness and even death. Eventually, they arrive in America, where the second book Unto a Good Land continues the story. The families travel to Minnesota together, fascinated by the vastness of the land and the unknown flora and fauna of America. Being unable to speak English, they struggle to find help, but fellow Scandinavian settlers help them where they can. The family of Korpamoen settles near lake Ki-Chi-Saga, where they build a house, break the ground and start a new life. Even though the novels cover the experiences of the other characters too, the main focus is with the Korpamoen family of Karl Oskar, Kristina and their children, and the difference between the point of view of Karl Oskar and Kristina. This will cover the differences between the two genders and how they view home, and within this frame the novels give us the most material in terms of mentions of home or

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