There is a power structure based on a male norm where the woman becomes the second sex on board. The study reveals a hierarchical structure aboard Aniara where the women are subordinate to men.
At the same time the women represent art, culture and existential search, mostly portrayed by the female characters Mima and Isagel. The women are either objects for men’s desire and sexual needs, or worshipped as goddesses. As the female characters play such important roles in the epos, a gender analysis of Aniara becomes relevant. When she dies the passengers start seeking distractions through rituals and cults and the male passengers find comfort in the women within the ‘sex cult’. She is an animate machine, or a scientific instrument, that brings comfort to all passengers by displaying memories from the Earth. Mima is one of the most important female characters on board. However, Aniara gets off course and ends up on an endless journey in space. Aniara is one of many spaceships with the mission to take survivors to Mars and Venus. The earth has come to its end due to environmental disaster and nuclear war and must be evacuated. Aniara is often described as a dystopian epos and sometimes even as a sci-fi adventure. This essay examines the power relation between men and women by looking at gender stereotypes and patriarchal structures in Aniara, an epos on verse by Harry Martinson written in 1956.
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