The undergraduate thesis analyzes and compares gender roles and national identity as crucial aspects of two contemporary European novels, Sandy Hill (Piaskowa Góra, 2009), written by a Polish author Joanna Bator, and Purge (Puhdistus, 2007), written by a Finnish author Sofi Oksanen. In the first part of thesis, the theory of narrative hermeneutics, first introduced by a Finnish literary critic Hanna Meretoja, is presented. The presentation proceeds in two steps. First, the main concepts of narrative hermeneutics are presented. Second, starting from a critique of the underlying assumptions of the theory, a more developed version of the theory is presented. In the second part of the thesis, the historical background of the two novels is presented, as well as the concepts of national identity and gender roles. In the third part, the two novels are analyzed and finally compared. First, Sandy Hill is analyzed. The analysis especially focuses on the use of a narrative perspective in the novel. The concept of narrative perspective is also discussed in detail. In Purge, on the other hand, the analysis focuses on the psychological consequences that systematic physical and discursive violence has on the characters, especially women. Finally, it is argued that both novels focus on a similar conflict, i.e., they both deal with the consequences that an unnarrated traumatic event can have for multiple generations of women in a family. Nevertheless, they propose quite different solutions which are shown to stem from the novels’ different structural and discursive characteristics.
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