“Knowing what a person has done, and knowing who a person is, are two different things”.

How does Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites provide insight into the experience of Agnes?

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In Burial Rites, Hannah Kent explores the idea that behind even the most heinous of actions, there can be ambiguity; that stories are shaped by self interest, biases and ideologies of the day, which can challenge preconceived beliefs of guilt. Using excerpts from archival material, juxtaposed with a story told through multiple narrators, including first person monologues of the protagonist, Kent allows us to appreciate Agnes not just as an evil scheming murderess, but as someone with a complex history and vulnerabilities, offering a deeper understanding of her experience.

The use of material from historical archives to preface the chapters of Burial Rites, creates a powerful authenticity to the story that provides a factual skeleton of Agnes, as well as insights into the way she was treated by the authorities. Kent is able to use ‘truths’, such as her literacy, intelligence and poverty, established by the Ministerial Records and inventory of her possessions, to flesh out the persona of Agnes and explore their implications in terms of her experience. They also reveal the deep love and attachment that Agnes had for Natan and her continuing grief over his loss, through her poetry in response to Poet Rosa, with lines like “do not scratch my bleeding wounds” and “my soul is filled with sorrow”. This suggests that rather than the narrow view of her murdering out of rage and hatred, that there may have been a more complicated situation, which Kent explores further. And, the official letters of District Commissioner Blondal indicate the hardline patriarchal approach of the law, at a time when women had minimal rights. His words characterize him as officious and arrogant and his repeated reference to Agnes as “the criminal” is blunt and de-humanising, showing he sees her only as a cold-blooded murderess. He shows a determined agenda to make an example of Agnes to address the “corruption and ungodliness” of his county, while details about the execution axe and the choice of the brother of one of the victims to carry out the beheadings, imply an element of revenge. Kent leverages this to show Blondal as utterly prejudiced against Agnes, which suggests her treatment and experience of the judicial process would have been harsh and unfair.

Kent uses multiple narrators – both omniscient, as well as different characters - to unveil Agnes’ story from a number of angles and provide a broader understanding of her experience. On her arrival at Kornsa, she is faced with hostility and suspicion, with people quick to judge her as unequivocally evil. Margaret sees her as one of the “Devil’s children”, Toti is so terrified at meeting the “murderess” that his stomach is “crowded with nerves” and Lauga is overtly hostile, accusing her of trying to steal.

But as Agnes shares her story with Toti, Kent promotes empathy and understanding of her as the product of a sad and complicated past, which allows attitudes towards her to soften. We learn that she has lost everyone close to her; that her poverty has led to deprivation and ill treatment; and that she has been alienated for her intelligence and quiet nature, accused of trying to “reach above her station.” Her intelligence was also used against her during the trial: “they think I am too clever, too knowing to get caught up in this by accident”. The unfair assumption of her guilt is even further exposed through Toti’s narrative perspective, where he sees that despite the fact Fridrik “claimed both murders as his own”, Blondal was determined to build a case against Agnes based on circumstantial evidence; she was “in the room”; she had “more incentives than Fridrik”; she was older and wiser; and her reluctance to speak about it later damned her as “reticent, secretive and [therefore] guilty”.

Through Margaret’s narrative perspective, Kent challenges the concept of Agnes as “evil” by showing the integrity of her actions at Kornsa. Her competence, initiative, and willingness to work hard, along with her kindness, making lichen jelly to ease Margaret’s cough and helping to save Roslin and her baby, are all actions that earn her respect. And, with her final revelation of what happened the night of the murders, Margaret concludes that “it wasn’t her fault”. Through these different perspectives, we see Agnes come to be accepted and understood as someone who has been horribly wronged, which transforms her experience from one of hatred and fear to that of a valued family member who is “not a monster” at all.

Finally, Kent’s use of first person monologues where Agnes addresses the reader, provide insight into her actions and her emotional world. They indicate she is selective with the truth, sometimes censoring or manipulating it, which makes us wonder if she does this out of fear or by design. From the beginning, it is clear Agnes feels wrongly accused, trapped and afraid. She is completely demoralized by her powerlessness where “everything [she] said was taken from [her] and altered until the story wasn’t [her] own”. She keeps quiet as a form of self preservation, “determined… to close [her]self to the world, to tighten [her] heart” but her silence is interpreted as a sign of guilt. Her physical abuse and emotional collapse in Stora Borg, reveal a profound sense of abandonment, “rotting slowly in a room like a body in a coffin.” Even her own body has rebelled against her: “I have stopped bleeding. I am no longer a woman”. After her move to Kornsa, however, she experiences an emotional rebirth where she can “pretend to be [her] old self”, “working towards a kind of survival,” and eventually gains back a sense of hope and a strong will to live. The monologues also provide important insights into her experience of Natan; how he “hauled [her] out of ….[her] miserable, loveless life” and made her feel she was “enough”. But also how she was “frightened at the way his mood changed so quickly”; one minute his lover, the next his housemaid. She reveals her devastation and “rage” when Natan sleeps with Sigga, and while she “has nowhere else to go”, she seems unable to let go of him emotionally, even when he throws her out naked in the snow. Through these first person insights, Kent crafts an emotionally complex character, that ambiguously suggests both motive and vindication.

Burial Rites demonstrates how the subjective interpretation of events can be used to judge and condemn a person, or equally, to absolve them. Through the use of historical archival material and a story told through multiple narrative perspectives, Kent is able to shed light on events from a range of different angles to provide a broader understanding of what took place for Agnes.
She explores the humanity of Agnes as a woman of strengths, flaws and vulnerabilities and shows that people can make bad choices in life, either consciously, through ignorance, coercion or accident, but that this does not define them as an evil person; indeed, ‘knowing what a person has done and knowing who a person is’ are entirely different things.