Love

Although it is not evident from the first few chapters, Kent’s novel is as much about love as anything else. From the epiphanic Laxdaela Saga that warns ‘I was worse to the one I loved the best’, Kent traverses the downhill spiral of infatuation and jealousy, presenting love as a damaging emotion that inflicts misery and uncertainty. Agnes’ love for Natan is, at first, exciting and affirming and sees her rescued from the mire of hardship that she has lived in for her entire existence. Natan’s interest in her meant that she could escape the anonymity of poverty and be seen – ‘for the first time in my life, someone saw me, and I loved him because he made me feel I was enough’ (p221) – and as their relationship blooms, Agnes invests herself fully into the lifestyle of mistress of the farm of Illugastadir. Becoming his lover sustains her and aids her through the numbing drudgery of days, promising a relationship that would put an ‘end to the stifling ordinariness of existence’ (p221). Agnes’ idealisation about the relationship says a lot about her desperation to change her life and to be loved finally and, for what she believed to be, unconditionally. Natan too is said to be attracted to Agnes for her initiative and determination and that she was not easy for him to read, setting her apart from the other women whom he found tiresome. He admits openly to her that it is because of her inferiority as a ‘bastard, a pauper, a servant’ (p249) which puts him in a superior position to her, no doubt gratifying his ego; the warning signs are clear as their first touch feels to Agnes like kindling that may ‘burst into flames’ (p195).

As time passes and the qualities he once treasured in Agnes infuriate him, Natan seeks companionship in the pliant Sigga and Agnes becomes acutely aware of the deceitful web he’s spun to keep her as his mistress and plaything.

Whatever the outcome, the novel presents love as a journey from innocence to experience and although not in the romantic sense, Toti embodies this trajectory. As a young priest, charged with the spiritual wellbeing of the parish children, Toti’s sexual experience is limited and he finds himself overwhelmed by the striking Agnes; when they share an intimate moment and she exposes more about her past he continues to wrestle with this attraction, at one stage being so helpless with desire that he ‘fought off a sudden compulsion to put her fingers in his mouth’ (p185). His curiosity for the story comes from a sudden need to learn as much about the ill-fated lovers Natan and Agnes as he can, as it represents a new level of intimacy between them; ironically, Agnes is loathed to tell the Reverend about their igniting love-making for fear of shocking him. The fact that Toti’s interest in Agnes exceeds her spiritual wellbeing does not go unnoticed as Lauga berates him ‘gadding about Agnes like some besotted boy…’ (p210) and Toti’s father questions his son’s fervency to attend the murderess. Toti’s illness is timely and severs the connection before it can deepen and by the time they reconnect, her execution is imminent and he choses to return to his official role as spiritual advisor.

Love Quotes

It seems everyone I love is taken from me and buried in the ground, while I remain alone. (Agnes) p 150

I cannot think of what it was not to love him. To look at him and realise I had found what I had not known I was hungering for. A hunger so deep, so capable of driving me into the night, that it terrified me. (Agnes on Natan) p 194

We had agreed that I would come live with him. He would haul me out of the valley, out of the husk of my miserable, loveless life, and everything would be new. He would give me springtime. (Agnes as she tells Toti about how she came to live with Natan) p 222

He is falling out of love with you, I told myself. And I began to wonder whether he ever loved me. (Agnes about her time at Illugastadir with Natan) p 255

Loss and Redemption

In the harsh context of 19th century Iceland, life is under constant threat. Of necessity its citizens are conditioned to accept loss and rather than try to assuage their grief, they merely continue toiling for a meagre existence. There’s a sense that the characters feel that by remembering the dead they are hindering themselves in some way; the proliferation of plants that blossom over the churchyard graves remind Toti’s father of his deceased wife and he is quick to ‘rip[ped] out the wild flowers and the grave [had] lain bare ever since’ (p30) in a vague attempt to supress his grief for the loss of his wife. Similarly, Agnes’ mother Inga realises the futility of grief but nonetheless feels the pain of her little girl’s loss, embracing both her children through the night to ensure their safety. With infant mortality rates abominably high, Inga birthed five stillborn babies from six pregnancies and this contributes to Agnes’ warped understanding of the misfortune of women. Her pain is acute and allows Agnes at a very early age to accept the uncertainty of life and the surety of loneliness and abandonment. The raw grief she experiences from Natan’s betrayal and then subsequent death revisits her anew each morning as she wakes ‘with a blow of grief’ (p59) to her heart and the loss still fresh in her mind.

When she is condemned to death, Agnes must comes to terms with another kind of loss; the loss of her personal identity, becoming the criminal without scruples or morals that everyone believes her to be, and the inevitable loss of her life by a most gruesome execution. Agnes is haunted by her past and what little there is left of her future and of ‘how fast the days are passing me [her] by’ (p119), and seeks to be remembered above all else in the world. Her primary concern is that Agnes ‘the woman will be forgotten’ (p38) and in the place of that memory will be the memory of a despised criminal who bewitched those around her right to her last breath.

Therefore, her redemption lies within telling her story despite the gnawing reality that her sessions with Toti are anything other than a painful reminder ‘of how everything in my life has worked against me [her], and how unloved I [she] has been’ (p120). From a theological perspective, redemption involves deliverance from sin, which in turn, will lead to eternal salvation. Under the guise of nurturing the criminal’s soul back to Christ for a cleansing redemption, the officials only real concern is for reform. The executions are an exercise in propaganda; a warning to those that may choose to stray from the strict Lutheran lifestyle might otherwise be deterred by seeing the ‘lifeless heads… set upon two stakes at the site of execution’ (p329). Blondal believes a victory has been won when news reaches him that Fridrick, after a laboured period of ‘daily religious reprehension’ (p172), has come to ‘see the error of his ways’ (p172) and he sees this as an endorsement of his authority. In contrast, Agnes’ unyieldingness is seen as a slight and he expresses his disappointment at Toti’s progress with her.

Kent suggests that Agnes’ salvation does not come from the unforgiving and often hypocritical approach from the law but from being treated humanely and with measured compassion and dignity in her final days. In a sense, Agnes earns the family’s respect and is eventually called upon for her expertise and skills. A turning point for the Jonsson family is when Agnes’ homeopathic skills enable her to alleviate a difficult birth when Roslin goes into labour and the situation is grim; her accumulated knowledge and understanding of the birthing process and natural remedies see Roslin and the child live through the night and the family’s attitudes toward her shift. In the same way, Agnes begins to feel that she can work her way free of condemnation as she slaves tirelessly on the Kornsa property, finding a nostalgic catharsis in being ‘up to my [her] elbows in the guts of things, working towards a kind of survival…’ (p204), and it is only the rush of time that reminds her she will not live to see the season for which they are preparing the food to stock.

Her connection with the young Reverend, who she chose as her confessor of sorts, is central to this process of healing. Realising the extent of Agnes’ loneliness, he offers a hand of friendship in place of the ‘stern voice of a priest delivering the threat of brimstone’ (p165) and indicates his willingness to listen to her story. Ironically, although she has been denied the right to speak on her own behalf as she was sentenced, she has now been given the opportunity to voice a defence. Strangely, as the long months come to a close, her redemption no longer swings on her innocence or guilt but rather on how the family has come to value her.

Loss and Redemption Quotes

But any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel. p 100

‘…it’s become apparent to me that the condemned requires means other than religious rebuke to acquaint herself with death and prepare for her meeting with the Lord.’ (Toti defending his tactics with Agnes to Blondal) p 165

Do these dumb animals know their fate? Rounded up and separated, they only have to wait one icy night in fear. I have been in the killing pen for months. (Agnes) p 203

What else is God good for other than a distraction from the mire we’re all stranded in? (Agnes) p 248

Those who are not being dragged to their deaths cannot understand how the heart grows hard and sharp, until it is a nest of rocks with only an empty egg in it. I am barren; nothing will grow from me any more. I am the dead fish drying in the cold air. I am the dead bird on the shore. I am dry, I am not certain I will bleed when they drag me out to meet the axe. (Agnes) p 317

Gender

Typically, the strict regimes imposed on the citizens of Iceland were even more restricted for women and the most reliable way to survive in such a society was to secure a husband as soon as possible. Burial Rites demonstrates that for poor women there were even fewer choices and these choices came with risks. Female servants were subject to their master’s will and Agnes recounts the moral conundrum she had faced having to ‘decide whether to let a farmer up under her skirts and face the wrath of his wife… or to deny him and find herself homeless in the snow…’ (p178), and recalls with disgust the ‘foul-mouthed servant’ (p178) who attempted to take advantage while she was sleeping. In the same way, promiscuity with each gender is viewed very differently. Agnes is branded a woman with ‘loose[r] morals’ (p170) when she chooses to move to Illugastadir with Natan and by her own admission she has become ‘cheap’ (p288), whereas the sexual transgressions of Natan are dismissed and he is celebrated as a womaniser and described by the more favourable term of ‘indiscreet’ (p169), despite his ‘bastards litter[ing] the valley’ (p169). The blame is placed solely on Agnes’ shoulder that Natan did not choose to marry her; Blondal’s assumption that she ‘successfully seduced him [Natan]’ (p170) epitomises society’s refusal to place responsibility on men. Even the women of the region lack loyalty to their own gender, and surmise that the failure of Agnes in securing Natan as a husband is a failure on her part in that she ‘couldn’t keep a man’ (p92). The price for work and a refuge for herself and her children was one Agnes’ mother Inga often had to pay, and it often resulted in another sibling for Agnes and a new mouth to feed. The juxtaposition between the desperate life of Inga and her daughter Agnes, and the Jonsdottir daughters, is never more obvious to Agnes than when she realises the girls have been sent away for a ‘reprieve from my [her] presence’ (p178) in an effort to keep them safe from potential corruption.

Natan’s slap, reminding Agnes to ‘remember your place, Agnes’ (p263), is a literal and metaphoric reflection of the male dominated society that infiltrates the whole narrative. Natan’s volatile nature causes him to act out in hurtful ways; when Agnes questions his control and exhibits what he believes to be a petty emotion of jealousy, he later accuses Sigga of ‘betraying his trust, of lying to him’ (p 277) and this is seen as a natural reaction. Throughout her time at Illugastadir, Agnes feels more out of control than she ever has been. Tempted by her growing attraction to the mysterious Natan and the prospect that she may be ‘more than just a servant’ (p217) is, at first, tantalising to her but her loss of control and her sense of self when she is with Natan is something she struggles to gain back. Even as she explains her story to Toti, whom she sees as a young priest but a man nonetheless, she struggles to separate the fact from the fiction and that ‘they did not let me say what happened in my own way, but took my memories of Illugastadir, of Natan, and wrought them into something sinister…’(p100). The elusive ‘they’, who were first presented in Agnes’ haunting first passage when she realises ‘they say I stole the breath from me, and now they must steal mine’ (p1), may be an idealistic representation of the men of her society.

Far from merely labelling the criminals in the community, Steina and Lauga too are subject to the graphic terms imposed on them by men. Upon meeting Steina, Blondal notes ‘something rather ungainly’ (p11) about her appearance and later remarks that the girls are ‘both very pretty’ (p15). In a further passage, their appearance is commented on once more as the two girls are compared against one another, as the Reverend Petur of Undirfell surmises that Lauga ‘runs circles around her sister’ (p93). Their identity is bound to whoever their father was in a formula that has them carry their father’s first name as their last (Agnes is Agnes Magnusdottir, meaning daughter of Magnus), and their existence is reduced to whether or not they are attractive enough to be wedded off to a suitable husband. They are measured by their ability to ‘spin and knit, and cook, and tend the animals’ (p61) and denigrated if they possess an education that they put to good use. Just as Sigga is seen as too ‘dumb and pretty and young’ (p131) to have orchestrated the murders, Agnes’ is ‘too clever by half’ (p131) and even she recognises the calamity this gets her in. For most of her life, people have scorned her ability to read and write and many of the men in her past thought nothing of ‘whipping the learning out of me [her] if he [they] caught her [Agnes] at it’ (p142) but Agnes’ inquiring mind and lust to know more about the world around her contributes largely to her downfall.

Although an association between masculinity and aggression is drawn using the volatile Natan, whose moods were ‘as changeable as the ocean’ (p239)…., and Fridrick, who enjoyed the sport of needlessly injuring animals, the tender manner of Jon and Toti withstand the hardships also and portray a more sensitive natured counterpart to Natan and Fridrick. Jon’s pensive manner makes him a well-respected father, husband and member of the community. His ready acceptance of his duty as District Officer may not bode well with his family at first but exemplifies him as a loyal servant to the authoritarian rule in Iceland. His measured manner when Agnes is put to death, as he helps her dismount from the horse, is second only to Toti. Initially, Toti questions his own masculinity when he finds he is somewhat disgusted by Agnes’ haggard appearance upon her arrival from Stora-Borg; he associates a strong stomach for brutality with masculinity – ‘… Toti inwardly chastised himself. What kind of a man are you if you want to run at the sight of damaged flesh?’ (p49). Although his body does fail him when he contracts a fevered illness and which keeps him away from Agnes, it is his physical strength that becomes all that she requires as she takes her final steps to the executioner’s block and he must all but carry her.

Gender Quotes

The farmer Bjorn did not like that I knew the sagas better than him. You’re better off keeping company with the sheep, Agnes. Book written by man, not God, are faithless friends and not for your kind. (Agnes) p 70

‘But they see I’ve got a head on my shoulders, and believe a thinking woman cannot be trusted. Believe there’s no room for innocence.’ (Agnes to Toti) p 132

‘But women may be jealous and not murder.’ (Toti to Blondal) p 169

I reminded her that the priest must give his permission… and then, Natan must be kept happy, for everyone looks to the master for the final word… ‘You need more than one man to say I do’, I told her. (Agnes recalling her conversation to Sigga about marriage to Fridrick) p 240

Inclusion and Exclusion

In the myopic society of 19th century Iceland, social acceptance hung by a fine thread. As readers follow the tales of Agnes’ woe, they are exposed to copious examples of society shunning her, and each time it affects her differently. At first, it was because she was poor and the daughter of a woman that was unmarried and in service. But by Agnes’ own admission, all that has been recorded about her past is what ‘other men think important about me’ (p110) and she believes any efforts to explain her hardship are futile, especially at the early stages of her meetings with Reverend Toti when she believes they do not ‘speak the same tongue’ (p120). Partially because of their treatment of her as a child, Agnes has always believed she was ‘not one of them’ (p120) and assumed it had always been her keen intellect that had unnerved people. Even prior to the murders, Agnes was known as ‘too clever by half’ (p131), which isolated her from the other women who would complete their menial tasks with little complaint and heel to the patriarchal rule. Strangely, it is these aspects about her that Natan is drawn toward and allows her to become his lover and houseguest for a time – ‘He [Natan] liked the fact that I was a bastard, a pauper, a servant’ (p249).

Eventually, her withdrawal over time becomes a shield from the injustice of a world full of people who judge her unfairly and without full knowledge of the truth of her circumstances. Her silence is powerful but it also has the potential to allow some to come to conclusions about her rather than see it as a boon; they view it as an unsettling characteristic and a sign of a ‘conniving spirit’ (p92). Margret believes ‘it’s not good for people to be kept too much to themselves’ (p275) and that Agnes’ isolation has been damaging for her over time. After years of being considered ‘a different kind’ (p92) with little explanation as to why the community felt this way, Agnes behaves as she expects others to; and Kent uses metaphoric language such as ‘if you move, you will crumble’ (p100) and ‘if you breathe, you will collapse’ (p100) to illustrate that Agnes has hardened herself as a means of protection against the outside world. Similarly, the imagery of the two-headed lamb being slaughtered by its farmer because he considered it cursed is chillingly like Agnes’ summation about herself, that she may too be cursed and that her birth was ‘unlucky’ (p108) to her mother.

Kent’s shifting narrative constructs competing perspectives. On one hand, as seen through first-person perspective, Agnes feels rewarded by her daily work on the farm and hopes that she can pretend she is ‘my [her] old self here’ (p78). She even considers renaming herself Agnes Jonsdottir (which she would take from her real father, Jon Bjarnasson of Brekkukot) as it ‘sounds like the woman I [she] should have been’ (p232) and symbolises positivity in her mindset. On the other hand, in the third-person perspective, caustic comments from those such as Roslin and Lauga confirm a different finding. Roslin is taken aback when she is invited to the Kornsa family home with ‘her [Agnes] here’ (p179) and Lauga’s concern that no one ‘seems to care that everyone in the valley gives us [them] strange looks now’ (p209), suggest that although there are those such as Steina and Toti who are fascinated by Agnes, and those such as Margret who take comfort in their shared fates, there are still many who consider housing the cold-blooded murderer as a bane.

Foreshadowing the journey that Agnes will soon undertake while she’s detained at Kornsa, Natan’s reminder to Agnes to ‘remember your place, Agnes’ (p263) connects with Margret’s reminder that Agnes should stay in the shadows when she joins them in the badstofa and ‘keep our [her] place’ (p15), rather than sit in the light with the family. This is an apt reminder that although Agnes believes ‘the days of work have soothed me [her]’ (p120) and she has found comfort in the relative kindness of the family, she does not belong in the community and it is not just the accusation of the brutal murders that have ostracised her.

Inclusion and Exclusion Quotes

‘Have you no idea of how the world works, Reverend… it seems a lesser crime to create a child with an unmarried man than one already bound in flesh and soul to another woman.’ (Agnes explaining how she got the surname Magnusdottir to Toti) p 109

He must not be used to the gnarled family trees that grow in this valley, where the branches rope about one another, studded with thorns. (Agnes about Toti) p 120

This is my life as it used to be: up to my elbows in the guts of things, working towards a kind of survival. The girls chatter and laugh as they stuff the bags with the bloody mix. I can forget who I am. (Agnes as she works on the farm with the family) p 204

‘You don’t belong in this valley, Agnes. You’re different. You’re not scared of everything.’ (Natan to Agnes) p 219