The allusion of Oleanna

The allusion of Oleanna

I looked into it and I realized that it was a Norwegian folk song. Threes a translation By Theodore C. Blegen which I looked at. It’s mostly about dreaming of a perfect place called Oleanna, where food and liquor are abundant and women work hard to provide for lazy men. It has an exaggerated optimism “I'm off to Oleanna, to lead a life of pleasure, a beggar here, a count out there, with riches in full measure.”

Below are lyrics that convey the subservient nature of women and presents the perfect mans world.

Support your wife and kids? Why, the county pays for that, Sir,
You'd slap officials down and out if they should leave you flat, Sir.

XVII

And if you've any bastards, you're freed of their support, Sir,
as you can guess since I am spinning verses for your sport, Sir.

XVIII

You walk about in velvet, with silver buttons bright, Sir,
You puff away at meerschaum pipes, your women pack them right, Sir.

XIX

The dear old ladies struggle, and sweat for us, and labor,
And if they're cross, they spank themselves, they do it as a favor.

 

In the first stanza it illustrates how men don’t have to be economically tied down to their family, they don’t have to do that work or have that responsibility. The second stanza discusses the less public side of a mans life, affairs and bastard children. The man doesn’t have to support his bastard children this allows him more sexual freedom with out consequences. Also it implies that the society of oleanna would not judge a man for such activities. In the third stanza it presents a man living a lavish lifestyle wearing “velvet” and “silver buttons” in oleanna every man is a king. In this stanza women in a servicing role is introduced, as they pack the pipes that men smoke “just right.” The fourth stanza presents women subordinating themselves to men in the most extreme way. The “dear old ladies,” grandma type characters, “struggle and sweat for” men, and punish themselves when they dislike their role. 

But I also find that this lavish lifestyle that men have that’s provided by women can be negative for them. In this song all men are treated equally superior, regardless of their morality, social status, kindness etc. they are just lumped together with the rest of their gender and soak up their not hard earned rewards. They also don’t really have the power or responsibility that is associated with masculinity. They don’t have to support their family, which is easier, but providing for a family is one of the cornerstones of masculinity in society, and men no longer have this. The women also beat themselves for misbehaving. Here it makes it seem like men no longer have to enforce their rules because they’re already abided. But in reality men don’t abuse women for the women’s injustice, they can beat women out of compulsion or insecurity.  A mans ability to abuse his wife is his way of asserting dominance and feel like a man in a brutish way. And seeing as this poem probably speaks to an immigrating male who is a “beggar in Norway” and could potentially have bastard children, he probably is more acquainted with brutish masculinity, and gives that up as well in Oleanna. The men of this poem remind me of Hedda, they are constantly cared for and live relatively lavishly but have no responsibility. There is a dual way to look at this folk song, which I think relates to the dual way to look at sexual harassment in Oleanna.