Syskonbädd, or “Sibling’s bed” in English, is a short story or drama, written by Swedish author Stina Aronson and originally published in 1931 under the pen name Sara Sand. While the story did not attract wide attention for many years, it has recently been republished and performed on stage, as well as aired on the radio. The plot is centered on Harriet, a woman who starts to see the world with different eyes, in a less strict and organized way. Her new view is welcomed neither by her husband nor society, and the book starts with Harriet’s escape from a “rest home”, where she has been placed by her husband in order for her to return to her old self. During the escape, Harriet meets several people, some like herself who believe that the world was meant to be different, and some who strive to maintain the social structure. 

Swedish literature scholar Eva Adolfsson argues that Aronson’s later works take place in a landscape on the border of the wild, and that both the characters and the story move through such a landscape. I believe that this is also the case for Syskonbädd, one of Aronson’s earlier writings. My essay focuses on the momentum in the book, its double nature, the zone of uncertainty that it creates and the possibilities that it presents. Based on this, my thesis is that the idea of a “sibling’s bed” solidarity is a formula that drives the book; it is the engine for all movements. With a starting point in philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari’s theories about literature, philosophy and art, I follow and analyze these different movements; the lines of flight that dissolve and create chaos, as well as the plane of consistency that holds the work together and on which the chaos is visualized.

These structural movements constitute my starting point for an analysis also on a hermeneutical level. Harriet escapes from society and from the norms that it enforces. At the same time, she seeks a new kind of community; a connection beyond knowledge that will allow new sensations. In this aspect, the outer movement of escape leads to another kind of motion, a static one, which may take place between people when they meet under such circumstances.