History Literature / FellowMan

* AnAxeToGrind: The axe Ragnhild meant to chop firewood with on a chilly morning, wasn´t in the woodshed, and she had to fetch it in the smithy. Didrik apparently spent the night there, and then...

* BadDreams: Ragnhild has coped with her crime, but the bad dreams come to her eventually. This one is pretty scary: She dreams that she is surrounded by priests, just staring at her, and in front of them stands TheDevil. Behind her is the things she has to protect - her loved ones and her child. She hews down the Devil again and again, "but he just keeps coming". The being tells her that you can´t kill evil with an axe.

''Fellow Man'' (''Medmenneske'') is a novel written by Norwegian author Olav Duun in 1929. The book tells the story of Ragnhild, a farmer´s wife in the area of outer Trøndelag, Norway, at the turn of the nineteenth century. Ragnhild is almost TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth, and cares for her fellow men. This comes with a price tag, because of her father-in-law, Didrik. He is a ManipulativeBastard who always double-crosses his son Hakon, and thwarts every plan Hakon has. Didrik is set on "having his rights", and stops at nothing to get them. He is constantly into legal process, and is justly disliked by a number of the other farmers. But as he always seems to know something about them, he has some power, and is left alone.

* AGodAmI: Didrik goes pretty far in this direction before he is killed. He even states "My will be done" - moments before the axe comes down.

* AngstWhatAngst: Ragnhild is uncommonly calm about it when Didrik is dead. Her first reaction is "There. Now the world is rid of you". Then, she drags him down to a place where she knows people will find him, and presume he slipped and hit his head. [[SnowMeansDeath The first snowfall covers her tracks]]. She does not even [[TheseHandsHaveKilled contemplate her hands]]. Later, she questions the morals around her actions, but still...
** This emphasises, of course, what a ''major'' {{Jerkass}} Didrik has been to everyone around him.

* GodIsFlawed: It is at least a notion that Ragnhild and maybe others as well don´t actually care about God´s intervention. When Tale says "God Bless You" to her, she answers calmly that "he has to do whatever pleases him in that respect". Underlining the fact that she has given up on divine interference altogether. God is, all things considered, no good in this novel.
* GrayAndGrayMorality: Håkon states that "if you do something right, something wrong will always follow". He says he learned that from his father, "who always wanted to [[WellIntentionedExtremist be on the right side]]". The notion that God is good, is also put under severe doubt.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Ragnhild explains her action this way, for different reasons. First, she reasons, Didrik was "not human anymore" (a fact that dawns on several characters from the middle of the book). Second, she would rather do it than see her husband (Didrik`s son) do it, and thus spare him the agony afterwards. Either way, most of them wish him dead already in chapter three of the book. The last reason, is that Didrik pushed Ragnhild´s personal borders a mite too far for his own good. That reason was self defence.

* WhamLine: "You don´t kill evil with an axe". This comes to Ragnhild in a dream that also works as a HeelRealisation.

Ragnhild gets a sting of conscience afterwards.It gets worse when Hakon does not protect her, and she decides to give herself up, because she wasn´t the man she thought he was.

* DomesticAbuser: Didrik takes it out on Tale when he doesn´t get his way.

''Fellow Man'' (''Medmenneske'') is a novel written by Norwegian author Olav Duun in 1929. The book tells the story of ''Ragnhild'', a farmer´s wife in the area of outer Trøndelag, Norway, at the turn of the nineteenth century. Ragnhild is almost TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth, and cares for her fellow men. This comes with a price tag, because of her father-in-law, Didrik. He is a ManipulativeBastard who always double-crosses his son Hakon, and thwarts every plan Hakon has. Didrik is set on "having his rights", and stops at nothing to get them. He is constantly into legal process, and is justly disliked by a number of the other farmers. But as he always seems to know something about them, he has some power, and is left alone.

'''Fellow Man''' ('''Medmenneske''') is a novel written by Norwegian author ''Olav Duun'' in 1929. The book tells the story of ''Ragnhild'', a farmer´s wife in the area of outer Trøndelag, Norway, at the turn of the nineteenth century. Ragnhild is almost TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth, and cares for her fellow men. This comes with a price tag, because of her father-in-law, Didrik. He is a ManipulativeBastard who always double-crosses his son Hakon, and thwarts every plan Hakon has. Didrik is set on "having his rights", and stops at nothing to get them. He is constantly into legal process, and is justly disliked by a number of the other farmers. But as he always seems to know something about them, he has some power, and is left alone.

* ChildAbuse: The novel has a pretty jarring description of how Didrik wipes the floor with his youngest son, 13 year old Arn.

* CarmicDeath: Didrik had killed a sami many years before, with the stroke of an axe. Thus, he had it coming.