Essay Questions

The Vanger family members are filled with hate. Why is this and how does this hate manifest itself?

The Vangers seem to hate in a philosophical way rather than because of some experience that they have had; in other words, they don't hate a particular person who has hurt or wronged them or their family. This would be a normal human reaction, and explainable; instead, they seem to hate particular groups of people, particularly Jews and women.

The Vanger family are so anti-Semitic that they appear to think of this bigotry as completely normal. They are not afraid to display their anti-Semitism, and the way in which they communitcate with those outside the family, for example, Mikhael Blomkvist, suggests that they also assume everyone else shares their hatred. It seems that this hatred had its roots in the war years, as there were many supporters of Adolf Hitler in Sweden during his regime.

The family also hates women, and this tendency manifests itself in the most disturbing possible way, with abuse. Martin Vanger is a serial murderer who rapes and tortures women in the basement of his home. His home is a metaphor for him; on the outside, it appears orderly, civilized, with everything as it should be, but below the facade it is set up for secrecy and torture. The fact that the Vangers effectively "run" the island has enabled him to get away with his abuses for a long time, but the general attitude in Swedish society against women has also enabled him to act in this way. There is little punishment for him at the point of the first transgression and so he is able to escalate without being taken in by the authorities.

How has Lisbeth's upbringing affected her as an adult?

Lisbeth was forced to watch her father torture her mother when she was a child. This impressed upon her at an early age the way in which men abuse women. She was also abused herself, and when older, she was considered too mentally unbalanced to be responsible for herself; she was given a guardian ad litem who was supposed to take care of her, but he abused her, raped her and threatened to have her declared insane. Because Lisbeth has been placed in a position of having absolutely no power or control over her own life, due to the events of her past, she is at the mercy of abusers like her guardian, and has no choice other than compliance.

Lisbeth has created a visual appearance that is designed to protect her from the attentions of others. She is almost fully tattooed and pierced and subconsciously this is intended to keep people away from her. When she does finally find someone she trusts, and falls in love with, in this case Blomkvist, she lacks the confidence in herself to believe that she could be the person he might also fall in love with; during her life she has been made to feel worthless and so it is hard for her to see herself any differently.