Líkami drengsins sem aldrei var til: Um samband samfélags og líkama í óreiðuástandi spænsku veikinnar í Mánasteini eftir Sjón
In: Ritið; Undur og ógnir borgarsamfélagsins, Band 18, Heft 2, S. 105-126
ISSN: 2298-8513
Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was (Mánasteinn: Drengurinn sem aldrei var til, 2013) by Sjón tells of three eventful months in the life of Máni Steinn in the fall of 1918. In this short period the volcano Katla erupts, the Spanish flu rages and Iceland regains its sovereignty from Denmark. Building on Judith Butler's, Mary Douglas's and Michel Foucault's theories regarding the body as a cultural construct, this article focuses on body discourse as presented in Moonstone. According to Douglas there is a direct link between boundaries of the body and boundaries of society. Everything that endangers the stability of society's boundaries is considered social pollution. Foucault's theory on panopticism likewise identifies surveillance and discipline of citizens' bodies as means of maintaining society's social structure. Because Máni Steinn is queer, his body is considered abnormal according to the period's definitions on what constitutes a healthy and stable body. Aberrations from the "healthy", heterosexual body creates divergence within society's fabric. To regain the appearance of a "pure" society Máni needs to be hidden or banished from it. Yet the arrival of the Spanish flu to Reykjavík deconstructs conventional definition of the body and unravels the social hierarchy. The distinction between the healthy and the infected is obliterated, as the body becomes a site where irreconcilable opposites merge. During the turmoil of the Spanish flu boundaries of the body become as unstable as society's boundaries become fluent.