Article: Self-invention in Isak Dinesen's "The Deluge at Norderney".

ISAK DINESEN'S "The Deluge at Norderney" (1934) is a tale about self-invention and its role in resisting the impositions of others. (1) Characters who invent themselves based upon artistic models find that the results of their inventions can far exceed their models; in a startling move away from the usual sequence of events, the most successful characters become idealized versions of their flawed originals. The similar activity of rewriting the past has a still more dramatically redemptive result: it allows Miss Malin Nat-og-Dag to go to her grave a free and happy woman. In the moment of death, memory and fantasy are indistinguishable, and the characters' masquerades ...

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