History Literature / TheEmigrants

* ImmigrantPatriotism: Karl Oskar is proud to become an American citizen, and volunteers for the Union Army during the Civil War (though he's rejected on medical grounds, to his chagrin).

* DeterminedHomesteadersChildren: Seven of Karl Oskar and Kristina's children appear in the film; Märta's twin brother, who died shortly after birth and whose name was never stated in the books, is omitted.

* DeterminedHomesteader: Karl Oskar and, to a degree, Danjel.
* DeterminedHomesteadersChildren: Karl Oskar and Kristina have eight of them.

* CharacterDeath: Given that the books have LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, and it's set in a gritty time period where there were numerous threats to one's life, there are quite a few people dead in each book. Characters whose deaths are portrayed include [[spoiler:Kristina, Robert, Inga-Lena, Danjel, his two grown sons, his infant daughter, Arvid, young Anna, and finally Karl Oskar]].

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters

* AdultFear: Kristina and Karl Oskar lose one child to starvation and almost lose another when she walks off in a crowd[[note]]a truly terrifying scene - Märta walks off while the riverboat is making a brief stop to bring on more supplies and her parents desperately search for her knowing the boat will be leaving any minute and that their sons are on board, ''and'' they can't speak English so they can't communicate with anyone to help find Märta or keep the boat waiting a little longer[[/note]]. They also come close to losing a son in a snowstorm.

* TheBigGuy: Karl Oskar is tall and sturdy, towering over most people. An aspect of his character that made it into the movie, where he is played by 1.94 meters (roughly 6 foot 5 inches) Max von Sydow. In the 2021 movie he is portrayed by Gustaf Skarsgård who is almost the exact same height, 1.93 meters. The role on stage was originate by Anders Ekborg, who is shorter at 1.76 m (roughtly 5 feet 9 inches).

2021 is seeing a remake film coming out (in Swedish, like the original), starring Creator/GustafSkarsgard as Karl Oskar. It has the under-title "''The Last Letter to Sweden''", like the title of the fourth book, and appears to be covering all four books in one film. Most fans of the original film appear happy with the choice of Skarsgård as Karl Oskar, even though comparisons to von Sydow will be inevitable.

* AdultFear: Kristina and Karl Oskar lose one child to starvation and almost lose another when she walks off in a crowd[[labelnote:*]]a truly terrifying scene - Märta walks off while the riverboat is making a brief stop to bring on more supplies and her parents desperately search for her knowing the boat will be leaving any minute and that their sons are on board, ''and'' they can't speak English so they can't communicate with anyone to help find Märta or keep the boat waiting a little longer[[/labelnote]]. They also come close to losing a son in a snowstorm.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: From the cover of the English translation of "''The Settlers''":
-->''Together they survive blizzards, grasshopper plagues, wildcat speculation in currency, and self-righteous neighbors.''

* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: One of the most realistic depictions of how while this trope isn't exactly true your children can still be a source of great joy. Especially prominent in the chapters that deal with the birth of Danjel, Karl Oskar and Kristina's first child to be born in America.

* BrilliantButLazy: Robert is seen as this by some: he is the TheSmartGuy of the main cast, but he also wants to avoid work. And even his search for gold is an attempt at becoming rich quickly, so he won't have to work again. The truth is though that being a BookWorm and not a sturdy farmer like Karl Oskar, Robert is merely trying to avoid any ''physical'' work. If he only had been allowed to continue his schooling and get an education, he would have excelled within that environment. But alas, his family is poor struggling farmers. So nobody seems to even see that as an option for him.
* CantHaveSexEver: Karl Oskar and Kristina in the fourth book. They learn from the doctor that she will not survive another birth or miscarriage and have no reliable means of birth control other than not having sex at all.
* CarcassSleepingBag: When Karl-Oskar and his son Johan are caught out in the open as a blizzard hits, the boy eventually collapses. Karl-Oskar saves Johan's life by slicing open the oxen that was pulling their cart and stuffing Johan inside while he goes to get help.

** When Danjel believes himself to be enlightened and righteous he tells his wife Inga-Lena they cannot have sex anymore since they are not married in the eyes of God when she is not enlightened. Eventually she basically pretends to have been "enlightened" also and to share his beliefs and they once again live as husband and wife.

** [[spoiler:Arvid on the California Trail]]. Lost in the desert he drinks poisonous water and, much like Anna, is put through hours of agony as the poison slowly takes him.
* CultureClash: Ulrika sees the word packet inscribed on a wheelhouse on a steamer, which causes her to refuse to board because packet means rabble in Swedish, and Ulrika's done with being considered a lower class of person. The captain explains to her that the word actually stands for mail, which puts her at ease.

* DeathByChildbirth: [[spoiler: Kristina. Though it's a miscarriage that kills her, not a birth.]]
* {{Determinator}}: Ulrika. She's determined to get a better life for herself and determined not to let her daughter suffer because Ulrika used to be a prostitute.

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Karl Oskar is responsible and his younger brother Robert is foolish. The former is a very hard working, pragmatic man who values honor and honesty. The latter is a dreamer with a strong dislike of physical labor, who fantasizes about finding gold and never having to work another day in his life. He is imaginative, to the point where he often makes stories up or embellishes on events, without always giving much thought to how truthful he's being. It's lampshaded by various characters, including the brothers and Kristina, who wonders how two brothers can be so different.

* FourthDateMarriage: Karl Oskar and Kristina. They only meet a few times over the course of about two years before he proposes to her. They do, however, spend a lot of time together while they are betrothed, including a lot of make-out sessions.

* GiveMeASign: Having gone through seven pregnancies Kristina does not feel she can handle an eighth. She prays to God to spare her and when she realizes she's with child again she begins to doubt that God really exists. She prays to God to give her a sign of his existence and when [[spoiler:she miscarries and nearly dies in the process]] she takes it as Him giving her a sign as well as chastising her. The sequence when she prays to God for him to exist became a ShowStopper in the musical.

* GoodParents: Karl Oskar and Kristina, who do their best to raise their eight children well, and with a lot of love.

* GoodShepherd: Pastor Jackson and Pastor Törner

* HeterosexualLifePartners: Robert and Arvid.
** Danjel and Jonas Petter also become a version of this, essentially sharing a household for quite some time and remaining close friends and neighbours for the rest of their lives.

* JerkassHasAPoint: It is hard to see Vicar Brusander as anything but a pompous WellIntentionedExtremist for his prosecution of Danjel's religious movement. Nevertheless though, he still makes a few good points in his speech to Karl Oskar against emigration. Many people back then ''did'' leave Europe for America to escape the laws of their native countries, or only because they heard fanciful stories about how much better everything was over there. And how exactly ''would'' Europe survive, if all young people would go to America and leave their old parents at home?

* TheLostLenore: [[spoiler: Kristina]] ends up being this for [[spoiler:Karl Oskar]] in the latter half of book four.

* TheModestOrgasm: While Kristina very much enjoys her sex life she doesn't feel it's proper to let Karl Oskar know just ''how'' much.

-->''I know I'm a helpless creature before the Almighty. You can do with me what you wish. '''But never, never will I say that it is just.'''''

** Ulrika and Kristina both [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] the fact that if they had stayed in Sweden a friendship between them would have been unthinkable. They hate each other in the first book, Kristna being a devout protestant who believes Ulrika to be a whore with whom she shouldn't socialize with whatsoever, and Ulrika feeling that Kristina is stuck-up and has a holier-than-thou attitude. During the journey a strong, unbreakable friendship forms between the two women, but Kristina knows that none of her family and friends back in Sweden would understand at all, or accept the friendship between them. This doesn't hinder their friendship in the slightest, luckily.
** Danjel is a born-again Christian, deeply devout and with an intellectual bent. Jonas-Petter is a rough-and-tumble type whose great delights in life are lewd jokes (the filthier the better) and chewing tobacco. The two are thick as thieves, share a household for a long period after emigration and when Jonas-Petter finally moves out he settles as close to Danjel's plot as he can.
** Robert is the BookWorm of the group; Arvid is hardly able to read at all. But they still are best friends.

* OrphansOrdeal: Ulrika was orphaned at four and sold at an auction[[labelnote:*]]not a slave auction, mind you: during the 19th century when Sweden was very poor, orphans and other uncared-for children where assigned to foster families by auction: the bidding was for remuneration, the lowest bidder getting the child[[/labelnote]].

* OvercomeTheirDifferences: Kristina and Ulrika. When they leave Sweden they are bitter enemies. By the time they settle down in Minnesota they have overcome their differences and become best friends.
* PapaBear: Karl Oskar. At one point he even slaughters his highly valuable oxen in order to put his son Johan inside the carcas during a blizzard, and thereby save him from freezing to death.
* PartingWordsRegret: The last time the Nilsson brothers are together, the elder slaps the younger quite hard across the face. He immediately begs for forgiveness, and is granted it more or less, but it's still something that haunts him for a long time after.

* RunningGag: Jonas Petter loves to tell stories, the dirtier the better, but there is one he never seems to get to tell. A story about a farmer who paid a soldier to produce an heir for him. He starts telling the story countless time over several years and doesn't get to actually tell it until the later half of the last book.

* SelfMadeMan: Upon arriving in Minnesota Karl Oskar literally has nothing, but the things he brought in the America Chest. His family spends the first weeks living in what could only generously be called a shanty, followed by a few years in a tiny log cabin. But in time, and through hard and incessant labor, he creates a large, prosperous farm that can with ease support him, his six living children and Johan's growing family. Much of Karl Oskar's drive and motivation is that he believes in people prospering through their own labor, but back home in Sweden he never had the resources to make his farm grow and prosper, no matter how much hard work he invested into it.

** Also Kristina and Karl Oskar when they learn another pregnancy would kill her. They go back to having sex, [[spoiler: only to have Kristina get pregnant again and die from a miscarriage]].

* TragicHero: Many of the characters get a tragic ending, but still, Robert is the one out of the group, who seems to ''never'' be allowed to catch any breaks during his entire life. He is the BookWorm and "dreamer" of the main cast, who never was able to fit in with all the sturdy hard-working farmers around him. And from a modern point of view, the best thing would have been to just send him to school somewhere to get an education. But alas, his family is struggling farmers in the mid-19th century. So nobody seems to even ''consider'' helping him becoming anything but a farmhand. And to add to all of the misery, his master is a nasty sadist. It is during this hard time, that Robert is introduced to his only friend Arvid. But otherwise, his life at this point is just like a nightmare. He decides to run away from his cruel master, and he plans to follow Karl Oskar to America. But not even leaving Sweden means that things become better for Robert. His romance with Elin is cut short before it even goes anywhere, and he never seems to be able to get near another girl. He sets out to find gold, but he only has to experience things like watching Arvid's painful death and losing the gold he ''did'' find. And just a short while after he's back to Karl Oskar's new farm, he is found ill and dies from yellow fever. And he's only in his early 20s at his death, because he was from the "wrong" social class to be what he really was at heart: an intellectual, who could have had a career within any field of his choosing with the right education. But it was never meant to be...

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Vicar Brusander. He's a very difficult character to like from a modern point of view, when he masterminds a prosecution of Danjel's harmless religious movement. But at this point in Swedish history, dissenting from the established Lutheran church is still against the law. And the vicar hardly is the only person in the parish, who has become suspicious of what Danjel might be up to. Furthermore, it seems like the vicar also thinks that punishing Danjel and his followers is for the best of the people. His belief is that if everybody could choose their own faith, society would be plunged into chaos. So even though the story naturally puts most of the sympathy with the dissenters, Vicar Brusander is still portrayed as this trope rather than a one-dimensional villain.