Author Archives: Amelia Tran

Prior to the death of Cristoffer’s father, Aksel, he was living a perfectly happy and simplistic life with his love, Maria. The Inheritance shows how handling the responsibility of taking over a business can affect someone not only physically, but emotionally as well. It is said that when a person manages a business, they become married to the business. Cristoffer’s relationship with his wife definitely deteriorated after he announced he would be taking over the family steel business. Tension existed as there was a lack of communication between Cristoffer and Maria as she did not wish for him to take part of the business.

Cristoffer decided to take over the family business to save the 900 employees his father’s death and company left behind. From there on, we see a shift in the change of Cristoffer’s character from a compassionate, warm person who wanted to do good by taking over the business and to make his mother happy to a man who wanted to bring money and profits into the company. Some may even call him cold-hearted and wicked. His relationship with his wife strained severely, and after she left him Cristoffer ended up raping the maid.

Another example of how Cristoffer’s behavior changed is when he fired his brother-in-law after hearing rumours spread about him. This strained the relationship between him and his sister. In the end, in order to sever their relationship, he re-hired Ulkirk, his brother in law.

Aksel never planned out the next steps for succession. If this were planned out, the family would be more open and expect Cristoffer to take over, or even his brother to take over the family business. Cristoffer’s relationship with his wife wouldn’t have been so strained. He wouldn’t have had to leave the happy life he was leading with his wife and Maria could’ve possibly played a more supporting role for the business if open communication occurred.