The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first book of the“Millennium Series” written by famous Swedish writer and journalist, Late SteigLarsson.
Stieg Larsson used to express his disgust about sexualviolence in his books. According to Wikipedia, Larsson witnessed a gang rape ofa young girl when he was 15 years old. He never forgot that instance and oftenhe felt that he was responsible for not being able to help and save that girl. Inthe book “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, he depicts a young protagonist girlwho suffers sexual exploitation but being a smart girl, comes out of it.
The storyline of the book is quite interesting andengrossing enough to make you feel like completing the book without a break.The main character of the story is Mikael Blomkvist who loses a libel caseagainst a Swedish billionaire Hans-Erik Wennerström in the beginning of thestory. He faces a punishment of 3 month imprisonment while he also loses hisjob as the publisher of the Swedish political magazine Millennium.
The plot takes a different turn as Blomkvist is appointed asa freelancer by Henrik Vanger, the CEO of Vanger Enterprises, who wants him towrite a historical biography about him and his family. Mikael Blomkvist choosesto accept the job as freelancer and decides to move to Hedeby Island where theVanger family lives. Later on, Blomkvist realizes that the main assignment forhim is not to write the biography but to cover up the mystery behind a girl’sdisappearance who was Mr. Vanger’s niece.
Mr. Vanger tells Blomkvist that her niece Harriet wasprobably murdered 40 years earlier. He shares his doubt with Blomkvist thatsomeone from his own family killed his niece. He says that almost all of hisfamily members were present on the Hedeby Island on the day when his niecedisappeared.
In the subplot of the story, Lisbeth Salander suffers sexualharassment as she was assigned a new legal guardian Nils Bjurman who restrictsLisbeth to have any access to her money and demands sexual favors from her.Lisbeth refuses any such sexual favor and retaliates but Bujrman rapes her.
However, Stieg Larsson has presented Lisbeth’s character as the smarter thanany other character. Lisbeth rebounds and revolt against her sexual oppressor afew days later and uses a taser against Bjurman and ties him up. She thenforces him to watch a recording of the tape she made when he was violating heragainst her will. She threatens him to make that tape public and in return ofavoiding that tape to go public, she gains her financial independence.
Blomkvist realizes that Lisbeth was hired by Mr. Vanger as aprivate detective to gather information about his private and professional life.He also comes to know that Lisbeth successfully hacked his computer to knoweverything possible about him. Impressed by her skills, he asks Lisbeth to helpher in solving the mystery of Harriet.
They both successfully solve the mystery behind Harriet’s disappearanceand Lisbeth helps Blomkvist to gather evidences against Hans-Erik Wennerströmwith her skills.
While the book has everything to be called as an excellentthriller, its basic storyline moves around the women’s issue of sexualharassment and domestic violence and tries to spread awareness against thedomestic violence.
