Steina's diary entry
Based on the novel Burial Rites
May 1829
God, why must you punish us? What did we do to deserve this treason? I fear her, and I know Lauga feels worse about it. Mamma and Pabbi haven’t even heard the news yet. I don’t know how they will take it. What if she slits our throats and spills our blood over our bed sheets while we sleep?
WHERE WILL SHE SLEEP?
Will we give up a bed? Will she sleep on the floor, the bug-infested, wet-in-the-winter dirt floor that I consider my home? Even that is too merciful for the horrors of what she has done. We could throw her outside with the cattle. She does not deserve our kindness, nor the Lord's mercy.
She will be next to us until her execution. She will stalk us in the day and she will be present for my sleepless nights. She is the humanised version of my nightmares. The faceless killer that follows us around when we can’t see, the reason our cattle die every winter. I can already feel the goosebumps from her presence. I don’t want her here. And what will this mean for us? We will be viewed as vermin in the town. She will taint our reputation, they will think we are below them. But that won’t matter if we don’t make it out of here.
She will kill us. She will torture and stab us 18 times as she did to Natan Ketilsson. She’s a murderess. She deserves to be executed now.
Why must they wait? They have chosen to torture us as well. Pabbi has been nothing but good to the commission, to Blöndal. He’s risked everything, he puts the commission above us. Above Mamma. Mamma is sick, she seems to be getting weaker every time I see her. I’m scared for her. I can’t do this without her. And if the sickness does not kill her off, the murderess probably will.
I hope it will all be okay. Just one step at a time. I need to tell Mamma and Pabbi. Maybe they can reason with Blöndal. Maybe he won’t do this to us, maybe he’ll show us mercy for everything Pabbi has done for the commission. But I can’t put my faith in a monster that is unfaithful. I saw the way he looked at Lauga, he is a pig. He’ll never help us. We have been sentenced to death, and I repent.
Please, God, help us make it through this.
January 17th 1830
Dear Agnes,
I know you will never read this, but I hope writing this will bring me some clarity. Blöndal said Toti didn’t do enough to help guide you to our Lord, but I disagree.
I know you got there, you deserve it after everything you’ve been through and I am so sorry that you went through most of it alone. You knew what would happen eventually, we all did. And yet, we treated you horribly. Like a criminal, a murderer. I let everyone’s judgement cloud my own, and I pretended to dissociate with you when I am you. But I will not pretend to have gone through anything you have, or pretend to know how you feel. But I just know I am an outcast like they have chosen to call you. My family does not understand me, like the world doesn’t understand you. And that would have meant nothing to you, but I know in my heart that I am right. We are misunderstood, we are broken and neglected. We are hated by not only others but ourselves.
I see my greatest enemy in the river, she stares back at me with hatred in her eyes. I shouldn’t have told you about Sigga’s appeal, but I wanted to give you hope. I now understand why you stayed out there for so long that rainy day. You wanted to sink into the river like a boulder, like the stone you say you shatter your teeth on. You were drowning in silence, so deep in your own thoughts that we couldn’t pull you out. I made it worse for everyone, especially you. I provoked you into becoming what everyone thought you to be from the beginning and I am sorry. I know that part of you hated yourself for things you couldn’t control. But it’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. He deserved it. It was mercy compared to everything he’s done. And if anyone heard me say that I would suffer from your fate as well.
You should have had more time. I should have fought more. I wish I had done more to help you. I am so sorry for everything. I just wanted to help, I didn’t want you to be alone because I know how that feels. Not to your extent, but I know Lauga does not want to keep me company. I know she despises me for not hating you or fearing you as she does. Or did.
Everything is different now. It is silent. Some of your past happened here. A lot of it was spoken here. And that truth still lingers here in our silence. The candles have blown out, and I have been enveloped in your darkness. It hasn’t been the same in ages, and it is not your fault. I enjoyed your presence, despite everyone’s wishes. But part of me wishes that you never came, that you never even went to Illugastadir. I cannot change the past, but I shouldn’t dwell. I should move on, but I can’t. How can I move past this when it feels like part of me has left this Earth with you?
I have no idea why I’m writing this, maybe if I burn it you will actually see this. I hope you’re doing okay up there. You’re my friend, Agnes, and I’m so sorry I didn’t do more. God, please do not punish her.
Yours truly,
Steina
In the novel ‘Burial Rites’ by Hannah Kent, the main themes include justice, death, change and innocence. I decided to explore the themes of death and change through the character perspective of Steina as she is one of the main characters that is affected by Agnes’ death. By utilising the purpose of a diary entry, I wanted to show Steina’s detachment from her family in the first text by creating a scene where she could isolate herself. I believed that this would create a large contrast between the two types of text in this creative task, which ultimately reflects on the contradictory emotions that Steina felt toward Agnes at the beginning in comparison to the end of the novel. I chose to end the creative piece with a letter addressed to Agnes, post-execution, since Steina made multiple attempts to befriend Agnes but was shut down on numerous occasions, inhibiting her to express how she felt. I wanted to allow Steina’s character to find closure on her own through the memory of Agnes since she believed that they were alike in some aspects.
Steina’s character in the novel is shown to be unorganised and emotional, which I tried to demonstrate in her diary entry by using informal language and varying tones. Throughout the letter, the way Steina speaks to Agnes alternates between past and present tense, showing that she is delusional and that she is trying to accept how her life has changed due to Agnes’ presence and death. The letter Steina writes is similar to her diary entry since she knows that no one will read it, and since she has created a version of herself in her mind that reflects Agnes’ personality. Steina implies this by saying ”‘I know you,...We are alike.’” (page 177, chapter 7). Agnes viewed her comment as insensitive since Steina was oblivious, but I believe that it was one of Steina’s attempts to compensate for how she treated Agnes when she first arrived at Kornsá. When Björn Blöndal first told Steina and Lauga of the inconvenience Steina was disgusted, this is evident in chapter one: “Steina was trying to avoid thinking about the murderess at all. The crime itself made her sick…” (pg 21). I wanted to create an evident juxtaposition, through the use of poetic devices in both text pieces.
In my creative piece, I incorporated multiple literary devices to showcase the relevant themes; change and death, but the most impactful techniques were metaphors, personification and symbolism. In the prologue of the novel, Agnes monologues “I imagine, then, that we are all candle flames…fluttering in the darkness…I hear footsteps…coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me…” (Pg 1). I reused the symbol of the candle in the quote “The candles have blown out, and I have been enveloped in your darkness.”, to talk about the grief of Agnes’ death in the way she described her fate at the beginning of the Burial Rites.
Throughout the novel, the river at Kornsá symbolised escape, isolation, fear and anguish for Agnes. I mentioned the river in the letter as it served as a place of vulnerability, and I wanted Steina to find sadness in that place too to further their underdeveloped connection. The quotes from my creative mentioning the river are written as metaphors to create more of an impact on the reader, and to create an emotive tone. The concept of drowning is shown a lot in the novel, which is why I wrote: “You were drowning in silence, so deep in your own thoughts that we couldn’t pull you out.”. I believe that this metaphorically relates to Agnes’ anxiety about her execution when she monologues “Where has all the water come from? I don’t think I can breathe.” (Pg 316, Chapter 13).
Steina states in the diary entry that Agnes “is the humanised version of my nightmares. The faceless killer that follows us around when we can’t see, the reason our cattle die every winter.”. This is a metaphor to describe Steina's fear of death and an implication that Agnes is cold-hearted, thus a cold-blooded killer. This quote also utilises personification to describe Agnes in a way that makes her out to be merciless, like the winter.
The overall purpose of this creative was to show Steina’s character development throughout Burial Rites and to dive deeper into why she felt she was an outcast in comparison to her sister Lauga. I did this by utilising multiple different literary techniques, even merging some to make it more engaging for the reader. There is a large contrast between Agnes and Steina, and one of my goals was to help Steina reach a stage of acceptance of her grief. The two characters eventually warm up to each other, thawing Agnes’ heart in Steina’s delusional perspective. I showed the developing connection between the two characters through the themes of the novel: change, death and eventually acceptance.
Kent, H. (2013). Burial Rites. Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited.