Gender violence is a subject matter that is tackled in many works of literature. In these works, the female character is described to have a weak personality often victimized by the stronger sex. However, there are also works of literature that empowers women to rise above these victimizations and defend themselves against violence and oppression. One of these works is the film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This essay seeks to discuss the character of Lisbeth Salander who is a reflection of the victimization against women and how she fought back against her oppressors to defend women against gender violence and discrimination.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a story about the mysterious disappearance of Harriet Vanger, a grandniece of Henrik Vanger. Thinking that Harriet is already dead, Henrik Vanger blamed himself for the disappearance of his grandniece because she tried to tell something to him at the day of her disappearance. To find out who could be responsible for her death he hired a disgraced journalist Mikhael Blomkvist who had just lost in a libel case against him that was filed by a certain Winnerstrom. Mikhael Blomkvist agreed to take the case with the promise from Henrik Vanger that he can deliver evidence against Wennerstrom that he can use in court to substantiate the allegations he made. They agreed that Henrik Vanger will make it appear that he is doing a chronicle of the Vanger family and that nobody will know about his investigation. Blomkvist discovers that there is more to the mysterious disappearance of Harriet Vanger from the island. Together with his skilled but eccentric research assistant, Lisbeth Salander, they uncovered the secrets of the Vanger family, particularly Gottfried Vanger and Martin Vanger, whom they found to be responsible for a series of murders against women in Sweden between 1949 and 1966. Eventually, Martin Vanger died after he attempted to kill Blomkvist and Salander hits him with a golf club. Also, they found out that Harriet Vanger was in fact alive after so many years and that she simply run away from his brother who was raping her.
The hero in this film, Lisbeth Salander, is shown to be a victim of gender violence. Having been declared a ward of her state, the court appointed a Nils Bjurman as her legal guardian who shall take charge of her money. Her legal guardian, however, forces her to perform oral sex on him just so she could get her money. When she needed the money once more, he asks her to go to his house. Expecting to perform oral sex once again, she had a camera placed on her bag to record what will happen between them. To her surprise, he tied and raped her. Salander’s situation is no different from the other women in Sweden as portrayed in this film. Martin Vanger revealed that just like his father he too violated and abused his sister. He killed woman right in the basement of his own house because he thought that they were all dirty.
What makes Salander different from the women victims of Nils, Martin and his father is that she knows how to fight back. In fact, while she has lived her life labelled as a juvenile delinquent, she never considered herself a victim as she tried to take control of her life. She tries to compensate for her small frame with her intelligence and skill to fight those who attempted to oppress her. This is evident when he tried to record on camera Nils Bjurman the first time she went to his house. The second time she went to his house she brought a stun device that caused him to lose consciousness. She also brought a tattoo gun that she used to tattoo “I am a rapist pig” to her legal guardian.
At first, it was not her intention to fight for women who were also victimized by men in the society. When she was hired by Mikhael Blomkvist to help him in his investigative work, she never realized that she will uncover a history of violence against women. It should be stressed that the film talked about a series of brutal murders against women in the middle of the 20thCentury which have remained unsolved because the local police were not interested to pursue these cases. When she does find out about the number of women who were killed she develops a firm resolve to find the man who is responsible and stop him. In the process, Salander becomes a vigilante and a hero of the women who were victimized by Martin Vanger.The conversation between Blomkvist and Salander highlights the issues of racism and gender discrimination in this novel. While Blomkvist thought that the murders were related to race, Salander argued that Blomkvist was wrong. She explained that the person they are looking for is “just a common or garden bastard who hates women.” (Larsson 484)
Cited Works
Larsson, Steig. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. New York: Random House, 2008.