**6. Conclusions**

Both novels show that the modern subject in city space is gendered—and gendered differently. Both characters, Hamsun's man and Sandel's woman, construct their urban surroundings through a gendered gaze and are themselves constructed as man and woman in a social and cultural setting. Moreover, the novels also show how this process takes place within a context of normativity, implying that gender norms are revealed as the premises of the performative subjects' frames of action.

Even though the novels are published more than forty years apart and take place in different cities, they have some structural traits in common when it comes to gender norms. Hamsun's man experiences humiliation when lacking economic means, the correct attire, food, lodgings, masculine attraction, sex appeal, and success as an author. All these weaknesses threaten to feminise him, thus revealing that femininity is a norm that is constructed as inferior and therefore something against which he must fight. Concurrently, these norms help him construct an enemy—a female other—who is even more inferior than him. The feminised imagery of the novel—*femme fatale*, monster, prostitute, etc.—discloses how these misogynist myths look, and the man's struggle in the modern city truly explains why they continue to work.

Sandel's Alberta experiences *being* the inferior feminine. Her existence in the modern urban space is a constant struggle, not only due to poverty but also due to a position of being degraded and precariously exposed to the male gaze and its dominating power. Not only does her work as a nude model make her extremely exposed to devaluating judgements, but her normal appearance as a poor woman also implies—according to cultural norms—that she is inferior, on the edge of being the worst of all, a prostitute. To Alberta there is no superior masculine position available, and to the extent that she assesses her male friends and acquaintances, she does so by means of irony. Thus, she walks through the city in search of other individuals in inferior positions with whom she can find solidarity. The palette of female friends with similar experiences underscores the novel's inter-subjective intentions and foregrounds a kind of solidarity, if not intimacy, between the women.

To both protagonists, inferior femininity is a constant option and threat, but their responses and actions are different. The strategy of the male subject in *Hunger* is to fight his way up from humiliation by humiliating the female other; the strategy of the female subject in *Alberta and Freedom* is instead to seek solidarity with persons who have experiences similar to her own.

Hamsun's man and Sandel's woman both perceive their own bodies as crucial to the interpretation of their physical surroundings. But while the hero in *Hunger* must deal with a body falling apart and a confrontation with the world that depends on a totally fragmented bodily experience, the heroine

in *Alberta and Freedom* instead sees herself as a body divided between outer appearance and inner inclinations. He chooses to leave the scene in a preliminary insight of having lost any opportunity, while she stays and presumably chooses a harmonious family life.

Both novels stage a person with writing proclivities in a city setting where the success or failure of artistic work is subjected to the mechanisms of a market economy. Their artistic ambitions are to a large extent decided by their material conditions, which seem to manipulate Hamsun's hero out of the whole business, and Sandel's heroine to stay calm and not give up. The gender aspect of these choices is to see Hamsun's man's escape as analogous to his failure to connect with possible acquaintances, while Sandel's woman's staying could be read as analogous to her ability to connect with other people. In common is the belief in the body's basis as a denominator for the perception and interpretation of sensual and cognitive impressions of the world.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
