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Isabel Black

As seen in: Yahoo Canada, The Conversation, Strange Horizons Magazine, Tolerance Canada

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With Moominmamma, Tove Jansson created a hero who wields a handbag instead of a sword

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By Isabel Black
| The Conversation Verified
In 1989, the science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin published The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. In it, she notes that many stories depend heavily on a hero with a sword or weapon as a central object, while bags seem boring and insignificant. Le Guin argued against the idea of weapons being the most important tool in a novel. Novels themselves are not “sword-shaped”, she suggested, but bags of ideas bundled together. It might be unexpected to link Le Guin to Tove Jansson’s Moomin stories.
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With Moominmama, Tove Jansson created a hero who wields a handbag instead of a sword

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By Isabel Black
| Tolerance Canada
© 2025 Tolerance.ca ® Inc. All reproduction rights reserved. All information reproduced on the Web pages of www.tolerance.ca (including articles, images, photographs, and logos) is protected by intellectual property rights owned by Tolerance.ca ® Inc. or, in certain cases, by its author. Any reproduction of the information for use other than personal use is prohibited.
Open in Who Shared View Duplicates (692) Issue with article?

With Moominmama, Tove Jansson created a hero who wields a handbag instead of a sword

|
By Isabel Black
| Yahoo Canada Verified
In 1989, the science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin published The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. In it, she notes that many stories depend heavily on a hero with a sword or weapon as a central object, while bags seem boring and insignificant. Le Guin argued against the idea of weapons being the most important tool in a novel. Novels themselves are not “sword-shaped”, she suggested, but bags of ideas bundled together. It might be unexpected to link Le Guin to Tove Jansson’s Moomin stories.
Open in Who Shared View Duplicates (3) Issue with article?
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