In the Distance

Håkan Söderström is the novel’s lonely, loving, and resolute protagonist. When the novel opens, Håkan is an old man with a “[w]ithered yet muscular” frame (3), and his “long white hair and beard [are] threaded with straw-tinted strands” (1). The prologue establishes his extraordinary stature: “He was as large as he could possibly be while still remaining human” (2). This larger-than-life figure is isolated by a number of factors throughout the story, especially his separation from his brother when he is a child, the language barrier he encounters in America, and the shame he feels about taking human life. Because he spends most of the novel alone, Håkan must demonstrate self-reliance. The resourceful man possesses keen survival skills and is adept at trapping, sewing, and medicine. Despite the violent reputation he acquires, Håkan is a deeply loving person with a reverence for human life. Some of the novel’s supporting characters, such as Helen and Asa, appreciate his gentleness while others, such as the amber-haired woman, abuse it. Both Håkan’s loving nature and his loneliness motivate his determined search for his brother: “Love and longing [keep] him going” for decades in this fruitless endeavor (196). Although he loses hope of reuniting with Linus, Håkan remains resolute at the novel’s ending, which he demonstrates by walking across the ice toward Sweden.