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The story ‘The Rattrap’ also focuses on human loneliness and the need to bond with others. The rattrap peddler himself leads a sad, monotonous and lonely life. The old crofter also lives in his cottage all alone without wife and children. He welcomes the peddler, a total stranger to him with all enthusiasm and happiness so that he can talk to somebody in his loneliness. He got out an old pack of cards and played ‘mjolis’, a game of cards, with his guest until bedtime.
The ironmaster is also leading more or less a lonely life. His wife had died and his sons abroad. He lives with his daughter. Mistaking the peddler as an old acquaintance, he insists that he must go with him to his home. The ironmaster tells the peddler that he and his daughter were feeling bad because they did not have any company for Christmas.
He asks the peddler to come along with him to help them make the Christmas food disappear a little faster. When the peddler declined his offer, he sends his daughter to him and she is successful in taking him to their home. She also requests him to stay with them over Christmas Eve. Even after the peddler’s true identity had been revealed, Edla makes her father agree to the stranger’s staying with them for Christmas. He does this so that he can enjoy a day of peace with them there – just one in the whole year. Thus the story rightly focuses on human loneliness and the need to bond others.