This study examines four short stories- “Gudarnes like”, “Vänner”, “Lolo” and “Kvinnor” - in a novel called Upptäckter written by Ulla Bjerne in 1918. My aim has been to study whether Bjerne in these stories writes from a New Woman- position. The New Woman novel as a genre flourished around the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. I have also studied whether Bjerne in these short stories uses a melodramatic style. Drawing on arguments from, among others, Peter Brooks, Thomas Elsaesser and Richard Murphy, I have focused on the melodrama in her text.

My conclusion is that Bjerne is talking about women’s struggle – the impossibility of a combination of work and love- and how the men are hopelessly behind. The aim to use melodrama could be that it works as a strategy, to make a strong criticism about certain times. My point is that by using melodrama Bjerne succeeds to picture a new subjectivity for women and she also succeeds to reflect the conflicts through women’s own experience. The theme is the same in all the four stories, but I have found that in only three of them, Bjerne is using melodrama as a tool. In one of them, she uses parody instead as a way of talking about the New Woman and her struggle.