ABBA THE EMIGRANTS - VILHELM MOBERG Jim Colyer

THE EMIGRANTS by Vilhelm Moberg Part 1 - Gates on the Road to America This is the story of the Swedish farmers who first emigrated to America. They came from the province of Smaland and set sail in the year 1850. The central family consists of Karl Oskar Nilsson and his wife Kristina, their children and Karl Oskar's younger brother Robert. Karl Oskar and Kristina are good, honest and hard-working. They love their children. Karl Oskar is stubborn and considered to be his own man. He has a large nose, believed to be a luck family trait. On Kristina's lighter side is her fondness for swinging, even after becoming an adult. She once fell from a swing and broke her kneecap. In time, the hardships of working barren land in Sweden and the anxieties about weather and crops take their toll. Debts mount, and Karl Oskar fears that his farm will not provide for his ever-growing family. Karl Oskar's brother Robert is 10 years younger. They were not close growing up. Robert is a dreamer and somewhat lazy. He is interested in books. His parents used to put a cowbell around his neck because he kept wandering off. When Robert is to go into service as a farmhand, he fakes his own drowning to escape. It does not work. Later on, his master strikes him for laziness, damaging his ear. Robert interprets the constant buzzing he hears as the call of the sea. He befriends his roommate, whose name is Arvid, and together they plot a journey to America. Arvid is a comic character, pretending he can read and hoping it might be possible to walk to America. His master's mother-in-law began a terrible rumor about him, that he had relations with a white heifer. Arvid was henceforth called The Bull. Robert had to stop him from axing the old hag while in a drunken rage. The Emigrants is a well-rounded novel, exploring different facets of human nature. Humor and seriousness exist side by side. There is also human sexuality, best exemplified in the relationship between Karl Oskar and Kristina. The couple find it impossible to restrain their sexual appitite even while being concerned about the number of children they are having. Sex has its bawdy side in Ulrika, the prostitute taken in by Kristina's Uncle Danjel after his religious experience. Science versus religion! The battle rages! Biblical thinking grips the minds of the peasantry, and they show their inability to cope with it. An Old Testament mentality prevails. Superstition. There is always a sense of conflict between spiritual teachings and the realities of the world. Even Karl Oskar in his struggles is vulnerable. He can not reconcile God's will with his own. Religious fanaticism comes to a head with Kristina's Uncle Danjel. He revives an extreme sect called the Akians after claiming to have seen Christ. Church authorities raid his home. Ulrika blunts their allegations when she recognizes the churchwarden as one of her customers. Still, Danjel faces exile. Robert flees his servitude after a whipping, and Karl Oskar hides him out. The brothers get close. Robert reveals his American scheme, only to be shocked that his older brother is harboring the same idea. Karl Oskar grew obsessed with America after after seeing a picture of an American wheat field, so different from his stone-infested farm. Kristina opposed him initially, seeing the folly and possible dangers of such a trip. She changes her mind after famine takes the life of their oldest daughter. The little girl stuffs herself on barley porridge which swells in her stomach and kills her. This is the saddest part in the book. America fever is now spreading. Danjel informs Karl Oskar and Kristina that he means to go with them. They have mixed feelings. Danjel's wife, Inga-Lena, and their children will be with him. Even more of a problem are Ulrika and her illegitimate daughter and Robert's friend, Arvid, who has been working for Danjel and whose passage the gullible uncle will be paying. A neighbor named Johas Petter joins them after hiding Robert from the sherriff. Jonas' purpose is to leave forever his detested wife. Who are the emigrants? They are the ambitious, misfits, religious dissidents, the downtrodden, the scorned, the hopeful, the good and the bad. All are seeking a better life. Karl Oskar is searching for fertile land. Robert is running from his superiors. Kristina and Inga-Lena are following their husbands. The day before they leave, Kristina tells her husband she is pregnant again. Karl Oskar is frustrated but jokes that at least one emigrant will travel for free. It will be their 6th child, 4 of which are living. 16 emigrants head for the sea. In their wagons, they slowly get acquainted. The talk is lively and interesting. Kristina does not like the way Ulrika looks at Karl Oskar, and sparks fly between the two women. Nor can Kristina stand it when Ulrika flaunts her new religion. Danjel is out of it. He assures them all that true Christians need not fear seasickness. Jonas Petter entertains them with stories of wives who have committed terrible crimes against their husbands. Robert wants to get close to Ulrika's daughter, Elin. He tells Elin what he knows about America and wants to help her learn English. Part 2 - Peasants at Sea The emigrant ship is "The Charlotta." Lorentz is her captain. The ship is small, and living conditions on board are miserable. The air in the hold is stifling. With so little room, people almost have to sleep on top of each other. Food and water are rationed. The land-oriented peasants feel helpless. Only Robert has enough curiosity to take an interest in the ship: her masts, sails and the dimensions of her deck. Captain Lorentz knows that not all his passengers will survive. There is a chapter called "A Cargo of Dreams" in which each emigrant secretly contemplates his or her decision to leave Sweden. They grapple with their own strengths and weaknesses, their hopes and fears about the future. Ulrika's introspection is autobiographical as she recounts how she was trained into whoring as a child. Her earthy fantasies are funny and titillating. She smells the billy goat. She senses Robert's desire for Elin and vows to protect her daughter. Elin's own musings tell us that she is not so naive. She knows what her mother is. Still, she accepts and loves her. These people are becoming real to us. Moberg is taking us into their minds. Kristina's hatred for Ulrika erupts when she finds herself covered with lice and blames the harlot for being the one who spread them. When Ulrika offers to strip, Danjel has to intervene to keep the two women from tearing each other apart. Ironically, everyone on the ship has lice except Ulrika. Kristina sets out to exterminate them with soap-lye and quicksilver salve. The crew jokes that things must be bad in Sweden if even the lice are emigrating. In her vulnerable condition, Kristina imagines Karl Oskar and Ulrika together. Even though Ulrika is 37 and has had hundreds of men, she is a beautiful woman. More trouble lies ahead. A storm arises, and waves rock the ship. There is seasickness and vomiting. Kristina dreams she is in a swing and can not get out of it. Inga-Lena becomes seasick, and Danjel sees his wife as a doubter, Then, he gets sick. But Kristina is sickest and thinks she is going to die. Two of the passenger's do die in the storm's aftermath. As they leave the English channel and sail into the ocean, the emigrants find themselves less bitter about their former home in Sweden. Contrary winds, fog and the monotony of the ocean prey on their minds. Kristina suffers from scurvy as her condition worsens. Karl Oskar can not have sex with his sickly wife and he feels ashamed that his thoughts are turning toward Ulrika. Kristina begins to hemorrhage. Suspense grows as to whether or not she will live. Karl Oskar enlists the captain's aid to stop the bleeding. He sits over her through the night, tormented by regret. Kristina pulls through. Inga-Lena dies in her place, exhausted from doing her husband's work. Toward the end of the voyage, Elin becomes receptive to Robert's English lessons. After more than two months, The Charlotta sails into New York harbor with its human cargo. Sight of the green earth revives the group. In the back of his mind, Karl Oskar is thinking of a place at the upper end of the Mississippi River called Minnesota. UNTO A GOOD LAND by Vilhelm Moberg From the island of Manhattan, it is 1500 miles to Minnesota. Before departing, Karl Oskar feeds his hungry family, and Robert and Arvid walk the length of Broadway, amazed by what they see. The group then travels up the Hudson River by steamboat, from Albany to Buffalo by train and across the Great Lakes. They are now immigrants rather than emigrants. You can not be one without being the other. Alienation is a major theme of Unto A Good Land. The immigrants feel the limitations imposed upon them as foreigners. They do not know the geography and they can not speak the language. Their dependence breeds suspicion and paranoia. The tension between Kristina and Ulrika continues. They are different. Ulrika alone escaped the suffering on the ship and even enjoyed herself. Now, she flirts with their guide. Kristina shares her last loaf of bread with Ulrika after an attack of conscience. Ulrika and Elin are caring for Danjel's motherless children as the old prejudices start to melt away. At a stopover in Detroit, Ulrika finally vindicates herself in Kristina's and Karl Oskar's eyes. She recovers Lill-Marta, their 3-year-old daughter, from an orchard where she had gone to pick cherries. This is in the nick of time as the boat is about to leave. It is a touching scene where Karl Oskar silently holds the hand of the woman he so ridiculed. The immigrants cut across the prairie and head up the Mississippi River. Arvid remains funny and stupid, fearing alligators, which he calls crocodiles, and wild Indians. These novels are virtually non-violent when compared with a Hamlet or a War and Peace. They are strong on character, simple, plain. We find people determining their own course, not swept up in events so overwhelming as to have their actions dictated for them. There is an emphasis on nature, the necessity of eking a living from the earth. There is not so much of war or what man has done to man. It is quite unexpected when at one point Karl Oskar has to elude some would-be bandits. The possibility of evil is always there in the background, but it is secondary to man's struggle against the harsher side of nature. The immigrants yearn for freedom but without having to do harm to others, typically Swedish. Once in Minnesota territory, they walk to their final destination. In the lush forest, they feel at home for the first time, and Kristina and Ulrika laugh at the shaggy hair and beards of the men. Kristina uses wool shears on Karl Oskar, giving him the look of a sheared sheep. Robert wants his hair cut short so he can not be scalped by Indians. When Danjel and Jonas Petter stake their claims near some Swedish settlers, the obstinate Karl Oskar keeps going. Only when he feasts his eyes on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga does he feel he has arrived. This is the place! Ki-Chi-Saga is an Indian name, but it is Karl Oskar's for the taking. It is all here: 3 feet of topsoil, oak trees, a pine forest and a lake. There is a basic optimism in these books and in Karl Oskar, an assurance that if we go hard enough and long enough, we will achieve the things we need. Domestic life resumes. The settlers build log cabins, make furniture, plow and planet and hunt and fish. Kristina prepares meals and mends clothing. Moberg pulls us down to basic survival. Making it through the first winter is crucial. They need a cow for milk and flour for bread. Returning one night in the snow with a heavy sack of flour, Karl Oskar gets lost. He finds his way but realizes he might have frozen to death. The sense of mission in the first book dissipates into a narrative of day-to-day living, at worst into a compilation of anecdotes and close calls. Of all the immigrants, only Kristina misses Sweden. She hides it. She now considers Ulrika a good friend and requests her as midwife when the baby is born. The birth is described in detail. So is Kristina's emotional attachment to her first child born in America. The differences between the brothers quickly surface. Robert is no farmer. He wants to get rich. Karl Oskar considers him a liar, governed by his imagination. After the first winter, Robert and Arvid head for the gold fields of California. Having cleaned up her act, Ulrika begins getting proposals. Women are scarce. Amazingly, she ends up married to a Baptist minister. The book ends with Kristina confessing to Karl Oskar how much she longs for home. Karl Oskar shares his vision of the future with her, that their children and grandchildren will someday thank them for emigrating to America. The couple agree to call their home Duvemala after the Swedish village Kristina grew up in. THE SETTLERS by Vilhelm Moberg Life goes on for the emigrants turned immigrants turned settlers. Midway through the third book, we find out about Robert and Arvid. They never reached California. Arvid died from drinking poisoned water after getting lost on the trail. Robert ended up in Nebraska with another Swede who came over on The Charlotta. After 4 years, Robert returns to Karl Oskar's and Kristina's farm. He has Arvid's watch and a large sum of money which he gives to his brother. Karl Oskar is suspicious. Did he find gold? Where is Arvid? Robert has greatly changed. His health is gone, and he is disillusioned. He sees the folly of gold fever. As it happened, Robert was swindled. The Swede from the ship traded him worthless wildcat money for gold given to him by a dying Mexican. When Karl Oskar finds the bills are worthless, he strikes his brother in the face. Broken, Robert wanders into the forest and dies, free at last. The pessimism of this episode is disturbing. We feel too keenly the tenuous nature of life and the ease with which men can be led astray. The Settlers goes through 1860. Minnesota attains statehood. It ends with Kristina resigning herself to life in America, just as her brother-in-law yielded to his inescapable fate. THE LAST LETTER TO SWEDEN by Vilhelm Moberg When the Civil War begins, Karl Oskar tried to join the Union army but is rejected because of his bad leg. Kristina is relieved as she opposes war in general. It is the Sioux uprising which poses the greatest threat to the settlers of Minnesota. Danjel and his oldest son fall victim to their savagery. The final book is more fatalistic than the others. Moberg takes Karl Oskar and Kristina to the end of their days. Kristina dies in 1862 following a miscarriage. It was after a doctor told her she could endure no more pregnancies. Karl Oskar and Ulrika have some bitter words as to whose fault it was. Karl Oskar's sense of loss causes him to retreat within himself. He raises 4 sons and 2 daughters alone. Old age follows. So do grandchildren. The European settlers begin to lose their character, intermarrying to create a new race of Americans. The melting pot! We hear the strains of Like An Angel Passing Through My Room as an old Karl Oskar, recalling his past, awaits death. The last letter to Sweden, written by a neighbor, informs Karl Oskar's sister of his death in 1890 at age 67. The series spans 46 years.
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