burial rites quotes

“I am knifed to the hilt with fate.”

said by Agnes, the use of metaphor expresses the depth of her suffering and the inescapable nature of her destiny, as well as reflects her constant association with pain with Natan, as he - ironically by her - was knifed to the hilt

“Because they think I’m too smart, too knowing to get caught up in this by accident. But Sigga is dumb and pretty and young, and that is why they don’t want to see her die.”

said by Agnes to Toti, where the perception of innocence is portrayed to be guided by antiquated patriarchal ideals which ultimately determine women’s fate

“I did not dream in the storeroom at Stora-Borg. … But last night, here at Korna, I dreamt of Natan.”

symbolism, motif, juxtaposition - thought by agnes, the dichotomy between the place of her punishment (stora-borg), where her dreams were taken from her, like they were “taken with my belongings to pay for my custody.”, demonstrates how Kent uses dreams to signify abandonment and fate, as in stora-borg, agnes was literally and existentially diminished. conversely, once at kornsa, kent similarly manipulates the significance of dreams to symbolise how agnes has been welcomed back to her ontology, and thus foreshadows her sense of belonging with the kornsa family.

“I have been forced to keep you here, and you … are forced to be kept.”

dialogue - said by Margret to Agnes, on Agnes’s second day, as Margret tells her that she doesn’t want her there, especially near her children. It speaks to the early reflection of both Margret and Agnes together, as they are both oppressed, not only in their womanhood, but in this case, in their class and status

“[criminal] does not belong to me … . It’s another word, and it belongs to another person.”

narrative viewpoint, identity - agnes is called criminal by margret, and experiences a cognitive dissonance, that at the time does not have much significance over agnes’s identity, yet with later context, speaks to how she doesn’t feel criminal responsibility - as others think she perhaps should - over natan’s death

“Blondal had decided to take Agnes from Stora-Borg. because they couldn’t risk such an important family being slaughtered—“

dialogue, characterisation - said by Roslin to Margret, it characterises Blondal’s actions as selfish and superior, speaking to the importance of class at the time

“I’m so sorry for you … being forced to look at her hideous face every day!”

dialogue, CA - reinforces the cultural assumption that good, proper women are attractive, and that transgressive, bad women are “hideous”, and in itself painful to look at, symbolising how they hurt the patriarchal ideologies of the time. this is reinforced through sigga’s appeal

“a finger pointing like a knife at my throat.”

narrative viewpoint, simile - agnes likens accusation to a weapon, demonstrating how the words of others has always been dangerous for her, yet with the birds not speaking to her, it is all she is left with, and therefore reliant upon; Agnes depends on other a’s construction of her identity and thus, fate

“I would only be trading one death sentence for another. … Winter comes like a punch in the dark. The uninhabited places are as cruel as any executioner.”

metaphor, icelandic landscape - agnes has no escape— she is trapped

“I prefer a story to a prayer.”

narrative viewpoint, VAB - Agnes is thinking of whether the family at Kornsa sing hymns or recite sagas, and her thought here demonstrates the untoward thinking expected of a time and place that highly valued Christianity. it further shows how she does not fit the ideal character that is praised and accepted by society

“Will someone stay to make sure … I keep my hands clean, and my tongue still, and my legs together, and my eyes down.”

narrative viewpoint, repetition, CA - Agnes is marvelling over how she has been left alone in the Kornsa home, and thinks that there is no one there to control her and force her into the mould of the good submissive patriarchal woman

“I was worst to the one I loved best.”

paradox, irony, historical document - excerpt from the Icelandic saga that Kent had chosen to open the novel with, that evidently sets up the later narration and plot conventions and impact

“They will see the whore, the madwoman, the murderess, the female dripping blood into the grass and laughing with her mouth choked with dirt.”

narrative viewpoint, imagery, characterisation - agnes’s thoughts here position the strong vilification of women at the time as well as the demonised classifications they were labelled that explicitly stripped women further of their humanity. Kent emboldens this in her stating Agnes would be “laughing with her mouth choked with dirt”, which not only impresses on the reader how Agnes is barbaric, but the laughter is ironic and nonsensical to Agnes’s own depressive narration at that moment, which juxtaposes Agnes’s own perception of her being against that of others of Iceland, as seen prior through Blondal’s letter to Toti

“What sort of woman kills men?”

narrative viewpoint, gender - Margret’s questioning also calls the reader to question, also, what kind of a woman would kill a man. Of course, the readers own contemporary society is worlds different than that of the 19th century Iceland, which then juxtaposes the readers personal beliefs against that of the cultural assumptions at the time, that posit a woman who kills a man is the epitome of demonisation and vilification. However, todays modern considerations allow for the understanding that notions such as domestic abuse and self defence exist, which then foreshadows Agnes’s own actions as a woman, wherein despite her lack of fulfilment in the prior two reasons, she had still not acted maliciously

“I’ve told the truth and you can see for yourself how it has served me.”

dialogue, truth, fate, characterisation - said by Agnes to Toti, Agnes is challenging the scripture “the truth shall make you free”, and therefore challenging one of the core tenets of Christianity, the local religion of Iceland. This demonstrates how Agnes, despite fulfilling Christian duties such as honesty, is continually punished and rejected by society, and so Agnes rejects the society in turn. As such, Agnes’s fate here can be seen as socially determined, rather than spiritually or philosophically, defering power to the hand of hungry men, such as that if Blondal, who is consistently characterised by his extreme value of status

“Why, Reverend, I would say, the blood tie is not strong… Oh Joas. I cannot reconcile the dull-eyed man to the sweet blue of a boy I was once allowed to love.”

metaphor, characterisation, challenging CA, narrative viewpoint - Agnes thinks this when responding to Toti’s imagined inquiry of why her family (siblings) don’t visit her. Agnes states “the blood tie is not strong”, which challenges the CA that family comes before all, as it is the strongest bind between people. As such, Agnes says that even her power to love her family was limited and disrupted by others through “[the] boy I was once allowed to love”, subjugating her to a lonely and isolated existence that reinforces how her autonomy has been continually and intricately stripped

“A true man is distinguishable from all others by his writing implements.”

lexical choice, dialogue, characterisation, gender, class - Blondal says this to Toti upon their meeting in Hvammur. this demonstrates how Blondal personifies the patriarchal, classist discourses typical of the 19th century Iceland, and furthermore how he seeks to imbed this in the next generation (Toti) through instilling the message that a man cannot be honourable or of dignity without imposing his superior class to the smallest of details such as “writing implements.”.

“She seems very well versed in Christian literature.” (Toti)

“As is the Devil, I am sure,” Blondal rejoined.

religion, irony, lexical choice, characterisation of Agnes - Toti is endeavouring to establish Agnes as educated and therefore literate of Christian beliefs and values, however continues to be naive in the fact that these are not completely praised attributes of women, who were instead preferred to be oppressed in their blindness to the world. Blondal ‘sets him straight’, as it were, in acknowledging that for the Devil to have been sinful, he would have had to known both sin and piety, and therefore additionally characterises Agnes in her continual vilification. Furthermore, Toti stating “literature”, rather than culture or beliefs, indicates Kent’s lexical choice to be indicative of the dichotomy between awareness and embracement.