The intention of this study is to investigate the human/animal-relation as a power relation in Sara Lidman’s novel The Tar Pit (Tjärdalen, 1953). With regard to the contemporary theory of posthumanism and its critique of the centrality of “the human” in the humanities, the aim is to seek and produce more-than-anthropocentric knowledge. Using queer and feministic theoretical concepts concerning dichotomy and hierarchy voiced by Yvonne Hirdman, Val Plumwood, Greta Gaard and Ann-Sofie Lönngren, this study gets to grips with anthropocentrism as a structure of power. In literary scholarship animals are often expected to serve as metaphors, and thus, the possibility of animals signifying “actual” animals tend to be overlooked. This study’s objective is therefore, using a text interpretation modelled by Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick and a method proposed by Ann-Sofie Lönngren, to focus on the surface of the text.

In the analysis of The Tar Pit it appears that animals is attributed “low status” in relation to the human and that the humans ascribe animals with instrumental value. The power relation between humans and animals in the novel is based on the split between “the human” and “the animal”, and also the notion that humans constitute the norm and are hierarchically superior. Furthermore the analysis show that transgressive activity between categories “human” and “animal” is illustrated as something wrong and the concept of “the animal” and “animality” is displayed as an imperative function in telling the story of The Tar Pit. Finally the analysis depicts examples of animal acts of resistance against the prevalent order of things.