Redefining Integrity: Portrayal of Women in the Contemporary Novels of Sigrid Undset

This study uses a feminist and structuralist approach to reevaluate the widespread understanding that Sigrid Undset’s conversion to Catholicism was accompanied by a deeply rooted anti-feminism. Her contemporary novels boast female protagonists that, characterized by singular strength and integrity, consistently outshine their male counterparts. Undset’s defense of certain traditional female virtues is discussed in the context of the general situation of women in Norwegian literature and society in the first half of the 20th century.