Good Girls

Silence, Speech, and Normality in Tove Jansson’s “Det osynliga barnet” and Gro Dahle and Svein Nyhus’ Snill

Abstract

^{Theme: Norms of (Dis)ability in Nordic Children’s and Young Adult Literature.}

This article presents a comparative analysis of Finland-Swedish Tove Jansson’s short story “Det osynliga barnet” (“The Invisible Child,” 1962) and Norwegian Gro Dahle and Svein Nyhus’ picturebook Snill (Kind, 2002), both of which portray metaphorical depictions of girls who deviate from social norms. The article shows how the protagonists, Ninny and Lussi, fall into silence as a response to emotional trauma and marginalization, before eventually reclaiming their voices. Drawing on critical disability studies, this study examines how the girls’ silences and reappearances function narratively and aesthetically. The analysis focuses on how their incapacities are depicted and how these depictions intersect with notions of power, gender, and normality. By investigating the ways in which silence operates as both a narrative problem and a metaphor for trauma and invisibility, the article explores how the stories structure and resolve this problem through the girls’ eventual “recovery.” The study argues that while their regaining of voice may seem emancipatory, it can also be read as a form of adaptation to updated yet still coercive norms of girlhood. The comparative approach also enables a reflection on how discourses surrounding discipline, conformity, and resistance have shifted over time. Ultimately, the article highlights the interplay between silence, speech, and normality, and the extent to which these stories both reproduce and challenge dominant tropes.