The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

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Plot Overview

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, written by Stieg Larsson, is a complex murder mystery thriller based in Sweden. The plot involves power, family, love, sex, and death making it intriguing and entertaining to read. The story revolves around a wealthy Swedish family – the family of Henrik Vanger whose great niece Harriet Vanger has been missing for the last 40 years. Since then, Henrick has made several futile attempts to find out what happened to her but all the investigation seemed vain. Since her disappearance couldn’t be justified, it was concluded that she was dead and her body was missing, Henrick dedicates most of his life to uncovering the mysterious disappearance of his niece and somewhere inside he holds his family responsible for her fate. Every year on Henrick’s birthday, Harriet would give him pressed flowers and even 40 years after her disappearance he receives the same present of pressed flowers every year by an anonymous person. He has been tortured by these gifts and is obsessed to find the truth behind all this. So when he hears about Mikael Blomkvist, a bold journalist, losing a libel case bought on by a corrupt Swedish business mogul, Hans-Erik Wennerstrom, he decides to hire him to investigate Harriet’s case. Mikael accepts his business proposition in return for a generous salary and some solid eveidence that will help him expose Wennerstrom and clear his name from the case. He steps down from his position in the magazine company and moves to Hedeby, a tiny island where the Vanger family is located. In order to avoid any suspicions, he pretends to undertake the task of writing a story on the history of Vanger family as a pretext for gathering data on Harriet’s case. Soon Blomkvist realizes that...

... middle of paper ...

...tional” hero. Even though her intentions involve the general good of society, her means to the end results are questionable. She represents a new modern hero who wants to fight the evil by manipulating/rejecting the system. (Finn, 2013) Unlike other female characters, she is socially awkward, chaotic and radical and comes across as a stark contrast to Blomkvist’s character. Blomkvist represents the power of education and journalism as a means to fight against evil whereas Salander represents the power of independence and violence to overcome the evil.

Works Cited

Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. (3 ed., p. 432). Novato: New World Library.

Finn, Patrick. (2013), “DRAM 571 Course Notes/Slides,” University of Calgary.

Calgary, Canada.

Larsson, S. (2008). The girl with the dragon tattoo. (p.465). New York: Penguin Group.

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