Ove’s thwarted suicide attempts

Ove’s thwarted suicide attempts show how firmly he has resolved to die and how repeatedly the ordinary claims of others interrupt that resolve. His preparations are deliberate, but they do not unfold in isolation: his concern for The Cat, an unexpected call from Parvaneh, and the arrival of Adrian and Mirsad each redirect him. The resulting reversals do not erase his grief for Sonja; they make visible the connections that still draw him back into the lives around him.

Grief and the decision

In the fourth year after Sonja’s death, Ove stands at her gravestone, running his hand over it repeatedly as though the gesture could bring her back. He tells her that he intends to go through with his plan, even though he knows she would not want him to. Before leaving, he says he will see her tomorrow, with the firmness of someone trying not to give her an opportunity to dissuade him. The scene makes his resolve plain while keeping Sonja present as the person to whom he still explains himself.

The next morning, after letting The Cat out, Ove retrieves the old rifle left by Sonja’s father from the attic. His dislike of weapons, he reasons, cannot outweigh his dislike of the empty places Sonja has left in their quiet home. The decision is framed not as a sudden impulse but as an attempt to end a life that has become inseparable from her absence. Yet even here, the narrative places his intention alongside a routine he maintains for The Cat, a small responsibility that continues to structure his morning.

Preparations and interruptions

Ove expects to die after breakfast. He tidies the kitchen, lets The Cat out at its usual time, and settles into his favorite armchair. He has chosen that moment partly because The Cat routinely asks to go outside then and does not soil other people’s homes. His planning is characteristically practical: even as he arranges his death, he attends to the cat’s habits and to the cleanliness of the house.

Parvaneh’s urgent knocking disrupts the plan. Ove hides the rifle behind the radiator so she will not see it and try to intervene. She presses a telephone on him, explaining that a journalist wants to speak with him. The interruption does not resolve his intention, but it forces him to turn from his preparations and answer an immediate demand from outside the house. His attempt has been postponed by the same neighborly traffic that repeatedly breaks into his solitude.

Later, after dinner and television, Ove goes upstairs with The Cat following him. He waits for it to settle on Sonja’s side of the bed; when it eventually falls asleep on her pillow, he leaves it undisturbed and returns downstairs. In the hall, he retrieves the rifle and covers the walls with heavy tarpaulins brought in from the toolshed, choosing the room because it has the smallest surface area and he wants to limit the mess. He wears his going-out suit, then changes his mind about ruining it, folds it carefully, and places it beside his shoes. His funeral instructions specify that he is to be buried beside Sonja, without ceremony, and he leaves money for the hearse. These precise arrangements contrast with the emotional loss driving them: Ove can organize the details of his departure, but cannot make the house feel less empty.

The Cat and the neighborhood intervene

Before proceeding, Ove realizes the sound might frighten The Cat. He puts down the rifle and switches on the radio, hoping that if the cat wakes, the noise can be mistaken for part of a song. The broadcast turns out to be the local news. When it reports a wave of burglaries and urges property owners to stay alert, Ove’s attention shifts from his own plan to the threat against the neighborhood. His irritation at the burglars grows as he grips the rifle more firmly.

Adrian and Mirsad arrive at the door without knowing Ove is armed. Hearing their steps, Ove assumes they may be burglars and opens the door suddenly, still in his socks and underwear. Adrian panics and runs into the toolshed; Mirsad approaches and gently turns the rifle away from him, explaining that they had nowhere else to go. As Ove lowers the weapon, he catches sight of a photograph of Sonja in a red dress, taken on their bus trip to Spain while she was pregnant. She had insisted on keeping it as a memory worth as much as any other, despite Ove’s repeated objections. That image brings their shared life into the scene at the moment his plan is interrupted again.

Outcome and significance

Ove had expected that day to be his last. Instead, after the encounter at the door, the story moves toward a morning in which The Cat and a person needing shelter are both in his row house. The shift does not suggest that his bereavement has ended or that his intention has simply vanished. Rather, his plans repeatedly meet the needs of living beings who appear before him: first The Cat, whose fear he tries to prevent, and then Mirsad and Adrian, whose arrival demands his attention.

The interruptions expose a tension between Ove’s wish to withdraw from a life emptied by Sonja’s absence and his enduring habits of care and practical response. Even his careful arrangements—tidying, folding his suit, preparing funeral instructions, and considering the cat’s reaction—show a mind still attending to consequences. When news of crime reaches him, anger briefly displaces despair; when Mirsad turns the rifle aside, Ove sees Sonja’s photograph and lowers it. The attempts are thwarted not by a single grand revelation but by ordinary claims that keep reaching him, leaving the house less empty than he had intended.