In Logique du Sens (1969 The Logic of Sense) Deleuze develops the notion of sense ( sens), a means whereby to reposition the relationship of intelligibility between subjects and objects in any given historical period. I present that one significant alternative can be found in the early philosophical thought of Gilles Deleuze. Therefore, what is needed in Canth scholarship is a methodology that preserves the discussions of realism that are so important to understanding Canth and her work but that also positions realism as a part of a larger interpretive framework.

First, this branding continues to privilege the plays that easily fit the definition of realism over those that do not, and second, it too easily reduces Canth's work to the characteristics and purposes definitive of realism, thereby preventing her work from being understood in other ways. The danger in branding Canth a 'realist,' however, is that doing so threatens to limit our thinking regarding Canth's work as well as our understanding of her relationship to that work. Realism is indeed an important aspect in Canth's literary production. In recognizing that much of Canth's work was closely aligned with 1880s Finnish realism, I am in full agreement with Laitinen and others. 2 Almost seventy years later, in the introduction to a 1953 anthology of selected Canth plays, Toini Havu refers to Canth as the 'äiti' of Finnish realism, and in 1998, Laitinen declares Canth, 'the most pure-blooded realist in Finnish literature' (xix 91). Canth was subsequently classified as a realist playwright.

Beginning with this play, Canth quickly established herself as one of the chief representatives of a group of Finnish authors who believed realism was the literary genre that would rescue Finnish society from its sociopolitical ills-the mistreatment of women, the abuse of alcohol, unnecessary poverty, etc. 1 Then in 1885, Canth produced what Kai Laitinen calls her 'first explosive charge of realism': Työmiehen vaimo ( The Workman's Wife) (87). Her first two plays, Murtovarkaus (1882 The Burglary ) and Roinilan talossa (1883 The House of Roinila ), were light-hearted, comic folk plays. For over a century, Minna Canth's reputation as a playwright has been dominated by the classification of realism.

Tyomiehen vaimo