We Women and Our Authors

In Short

In this sharp cultural critique, Laura Marholm examines how nineteenth-century male authors depict the modern woman. Moving through the literary works of Gottfried Keller, Paul Heyse, Henrik Ibsen, Björnstjerne Björnson, Leo Tolstoy, August Strindberg, Guy de Maupassant, and Barbey d'Aurevilly, she traces how literature shifted from reverent, organic love to sterile intellectualism, moralizing dogmatism, and open hatred of female nature. She argues that despite their reformist rhetoric, modern authors force women into unnatural categories, urging women to look past literary formulas and reclaim their true nature and maternal destiny.

The Story

The book opens with an assessment of the contemporary German woman's changing position. Formerly content to exist as a mere appendage to man, the modern woman now seeks self-direction, outward economic independence, and individual identity. Yet Marholm warns that this struggle, while necessary for basic self-ownership, frequently costs woman her most essential attribute: her womanliness.

To analyze this transformation, the argument examines key nineteenth-century authors and their female characters. Gottfried Keller represents an older, richer tradition; he understood women through instinct and feeling rather than abstract intellectual theories. Keller presented women like Judith in Green Henry as plastic, loving, and deeply sensuous, accepting their organic nature without forcing them into social problems or idealizations.

By contrast, modern literature turns away from genuine love toward ideological cul-de-sacs. Paul Heyse initially captured the absolute, vital force of love, yet also introduced the "sexless woman" filled with spiritual emotions but terrified of physical yield. Henrik Ibsen took this tendency further, abandoning poetry for social problem-plays. Ibsen systematically dismantled every cultural ideal—religious faith, romantic imagination, social convention—and ultimately turned on his own female creations. In Hedda Gabler, Ibsen created a portrait of modern moral bankruptcy, repudiating his earlier glorification of women and exposing the sterility of the emancipated, man-hating female.

The critique then turns to Björnstjerne Björnson, who attempted to preach a single moral standard of absolute purity for both sexes. By comparing human relations to tamed animals in a cage, Björnson advocated an artificial, sexless ideal that denies human instinct. Leo Tolstoy and August Strindberg carry this hostility toward woman to its absolute extreme. Tolstoy’s moral tortures lead to a total negation of life, while Strindberg's deep-seated personal conflicts produce a fierce, impressionistic warfare against women, portraying them as parasitic, deceitful, or destructive to the male intellect.

French writers offer a different perspective on the modern woman. Guy de Maupassant captures the cold, self-absorbed coquette of the fin de siècle—a woman whose life revolves around her own image and whose lack of feeling leaves her entirely sterile. Barbey d'Aurevilly stands out as a rare exception, possessing a Shakespearean, unmerciful depth that gazes into the innermost sanctuary of womanhood without reducing it to shallow formulas.

In the final reckoning, Marholm declares that the nineteenth century's intellectual movements have reached moral bankruptcy. Male authors have tried to turn women into doctors, professors, sexless puritans, or apple dumplings, but never true mothers. She urges women to stop relying on male authors and abstract intellect, calling on them to trust their own instincts and embrace their central identity as the mothers of future generations.

How It Unfolds

The emergence of the new woman German women begin seeking individual identity and economic self-sufficiency rather than remaining mere appendages to men. This fight for external independence provides necessary freedom, but it risks destroying intrinsic womanliness.

The instinctual depth of Gottfried Keller Keller stands apart from modern problem-writers by portraying women through unstudied intuition rather than rigid intellectual theories. His character Judith exemplifies a mature, sensuous, self-subjecting love that modern authors no longer understand.

The dead ends of Henrik Ibsen Ibsen drives his readers through a series of intellectual cul-de-sacs, moving from religious and romantic critiques to social problem-dramas. In Hedda Gabler, he thoroughly repudiates his earlier feminist ideals, presenting an exhausted, destructive, and sexless woman.

The artificial purity of Björnstjerne Björnson Björnson attempts to fuse theology with materialism by preaching absolute sexlessness and a single moral standard. He uses flawed analogies of caged domestic animals to argue that human sexual instincts can be trained away.

The dark hostilites of Tolstoy and Strindberg Tolstoy's bad conscience drives him to a total negation of physical life, while Strindberg's fractured ego wages relentless literary war against women. Both authors reflect a deep Slavonic or primitive shudder of disgust toward love and female nature.

The cold vanity of the French coquette French authors portray the modern woman's internal coldness and sterile egoism. Maupassant describes a self-conscious coquette who lives only for her toilet and the excitement of capturing lovers she never intends to yield to.

The call to return to nature As the century ends in intellectual bankruptcy, women must stop relying on male writers who try to recreate woman in their own half-image. Women must abandon abstract intellect and rely on instinct to reclaim their place as mothers.

The People

Laura Marholm The author and cultural critic who evaluates nineteenth-century literature from a woman's perspective. She wants women to achieve genuine self-possession, but she strongly resists the modern push toward sexless emancipation and cold intellectualism, advocating instead for a return to female instinct and motherhood.

Gottfried Keller An old-fashioned Swiss author who writes without struggling for original style or artificial social problems. He observes women with intuitive ease, portraying characters like Judith and little Meret with deep warmth, sensuality, and unidealized emotional reality.

Henrik Ibsen A formidable Norwegian dramatist who continuously steers his work into ideological cul-de-sacs. Lacking genuine erotic insight into women, he uses female figures as chess pieces, eventually destroying his own idealistic creations through the bankrupt, anti-maternal figure of Hedda Gabler.

Björnstjerne Björnson A Norwegian reformer and author who tries to harmonize theology with modern materialism. He preaches an artificial doctrine of absolute sexlessness and moral purity, treating human beings like domestic animals that can be trained out of their basic biological drives.

August Strindberg A deeply conflicted Swedish writer whose unformed ego drives him to write intensely personal, impressionistic literature. Filled with personal bitterness and suspicion, he repeatedly depicts marital life as a battleground where women exploit, drain, and destroy men.

In Its Own Voice

"Judith is the woman, the apocalypse of woman even for Keller, the embodiment of warm-hearted sympathy."

Marholm highlights how Keller's depiction of a mature, loving woman stands out against the coldness of modern problem-novels.

"If we examine his entire life-work, piece by piece, we shall arrive at the conclusion that it was a persistent wandering out of one cul-de-sac into the other."

This evaluation captures Ibsen's relentless dramatic progression from early idealistic plays to ultimate moral dead ends.

"It is thus that the half man seeks to create woman in the likeness of his own image, to make her only half a woman."

The author summarizes how modern male writers attempt to strip women of their authentic maternal instincts to suit contemporary theories.

What It's Really About

The book investigates the profound misunderstanding of women in modern European literature. Marholm argues that as nineteenth-century society became increasingly mechanized and urbanized, its male authors lost touch with natural vitality. Instead of portraying women as whole, feeling, and maternal beings, writers turned them into ideological instruments—whether as sexless apostles of purity, destructive anti-heroines, or superficial coquettes.

Beneath its literary criticism, the work is a defense of biological instinct over abstract intellect. Marholm contends that true female emancipation cannot be achieved by copying male professional life or adopting men's intellectual neuroses. The text insists that woman's ultimate fulfillment and strength reside in her unique bodily and emotional nature, specifically in her capacity to be the mother of future generations.

Why Read It Today

This volume offers a compelling, unfiltered contemporary window into the European literary scene at the end of the nineteenth century. Readers interested in the history of feminism, literary criticism, and Scandinavian or German literature will find Marholm's sharp, polemical voice both refreshing and historically illuminating. She evaluates major figures like Ibsen, Strindberg, and Tolstoy not as distant classics, but as active cultural influences whose ideas directly impacted daily life and social attitudes.

Reading the work requires an appreciation for its late-Victorian context and period-specific worldview. Marholm's essentialist stance on gender and motherhood directly challenges both the early women's rights movements of her day and modern feminist frameworks. Furthermore, her analysis relies on a broad knowledge of nineteenth-century European drama and fiction, frequently referencing specific plays and novels without summarizing their full plots. Yet her writing remains remarkably lucid, energetic, and free of academic jargon. What stays with the reader is her fierce independence of mind and her refusal to accept fashionable literary trends at face value.