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This thesis studies Karin Boye’s novel Kallocain: Roman från 2000-talet (1940) and Ett öga rött (2003) by Jonas Hassen Khemiri. The aim of the analysis is to examine the novels’ portrayals of power in order to see if there are traces of totalitarian tendencies from the dystopian novel Kallocain, in the contemporary story of Ett öga rött. Due to the intention of the analysis, I chose to apply a palimpsestic methodology, meaning I have analyzed Ett öga rött – symbolically – on top of Kallocain. The theoretical groundwork consists mainly of Michel Foucault’s theory on power, particularly from his book Discipline and Punish (1975), but other works that have studied Foucault have been of help as well.

My results show that the same disciplinary powers are visible in Kallocain and in Ett öga rött. The governments, schools and other individuals exert the same type of power over the main protagonists Leo and Halim, which confirms that the totalitarian methods used in the fictional state of Kallocain are also utilized in Hassen Khemiris portrayal of Sweden in Ett öga rött. The discussion on knowledge is applicable in the same way. The notions of propaganda and truth are hard to separate in both novels, but I conclude that knowledge is used to control and adapt nonconforming people to standard society, while also constructing the protagonists as subjects and objects of power. This happens in Kallocain as well as Ett öga rött. The protagonists also use three methods to resist the disciplinary power, mainly: external resistance, internal resistance, and mimicry. These forms of resistance aim to free the protagonists from the oppressive norms and make them feel like individuals who cannot be controlled.