Kallocain

Kallocain is a 1940 published novel by the Swedish writer Karin Boye. Kallocain is a dystopia, and denoted in the fictional novel event a named after its inventor, Leo Kall truth serum.

The world

The novel paints a very bleak picture of the future: two superpowers, the world state on the one hand and the universal state on the other hand, the earth have divided among themselves.

The hero Kall lives in a totalitarian world state that determines the lives of its citizens completely. Human life is played out in underground cities, the surface may be entered only with special permission. The cities are highly specialized, the novel takes place in chemistry city number 4 The inhabitants go to a regular job, but also have additional ( after hours ) several times a week do police or military service.

The society as a whole organized extremely militaristic: the only common salutation is " fellow soldier " ( Swedish " medsoldat "). In celebration will not dance, but marches. The fact that the standardized unit private apartment is equipped with microphones and cameras, is self-evident, the barely existing leisure and said monitoring leads, moreover, to a decrease in the birth rate. Nevertheless incurred offspring is educated from an early age in state institutions. After completion of training the young people to be relocated as needed to other cities without being able to keep any contact with the family.

The plot

The work is told from the perspective of Leo Kall in the first person. Leo Kall is a chemist who faithfully fulfilled its responsibilities. He harbors no ambitions critical of the regime, but has on the contrary a very interesting invention made ​​for the state: the pale green liquid Kallocain, which acts as an infallible truth serum. Who gets injected disclose any interviewer his secret and innermost thoughts - with no medical side effects.

The State intends course to seek in this way by enemies of the state. The problem is that even the first, voluntary test candidates reveal telltale thoughts - without exception. Although there is a real sect of dissenters, who dream of a peaceful co-existence, but this is discovered by chance.

In principle, then the existence of the drug boils down to that now, any fellow soldier can be conveniently out of the way: a denunciation, an injection, a confession, a conviction, an execution. This fate can also Leo Kall bestowed his hated head of department cracks because it is convinced that the latter had an affair with Kalls wife Linda. Marriages are set in the fictional world of the novel a pure community of purpose - they serve the generation of offspring. They are usually divorced, once the kids are out of the house, so with five years if they are fed into the re-education camp.

As Kall now - private and unobserved - wants to bring Linda using the drug to confess their relationship, he reveals this, that they rather genuine feelings for Kall feel, which is quite unusual. She forgives him even the use of the drug, and so they want to deny their future life together.

Ironically, now the city but is captured by troops of the universal state and Kall deported due to its importance as a scientist. From then on he lives in captivity, however - he noticed this already in the prologue of the book - barely noticeable from the previously offered "freedom" is different. The importance of the prologue, the reader is, however, apparent only with the end of the book.

Literature and History

The novel is somewhat similar to George Orwell's 1984, but was written some eight years earlier. It also reflects the real conditions in the Third Reich or the early Soviet Union, but no annual figures are called or made ​​usable geographical information. In fact Kallocain is only conditionally classified as dystopia. It is rather a covert criticism of National Socialism, collaborated with the Swede. The novel thus belongs to the so-called Swedish readiness literature that should motivate its readers to the preservation of democratic values ​​.

Effect story

The work has been translated into more than ten languages ​​and in 1980 adapted by Hans Abramson in a TV series. German translations (1947 by Helga Clemens, 1992 by Helga Thiele ) are entitled Karin Boye: Kallocain, ISBN 3- 518-38760 -X and ISBN 3-89029-009-4 published. The German editions were accompanied by the title A novel of the 21st century.