It is not until the ordinary heroine Fransiska in Fredrika Bremer’s novel Grannarne [The Neighbours] has integrated into her new neighborhood that she can become a truly functional and self-governing individual. And it is only when the young customs officer Arve in Emilie Flygare-Carlén’s Rosen på Tistelön [The Rose of Thistle Island] gets involved in the welfare of the little coastal community that he lives up to his true potential as an autonomous and useful human being. The article discusses the way in which the individual in these novels is formed in a liberal economy. Subjectivation is looked upon from the perspective of Étienne Balibar, who equates the liberal subject with the citizen. Functioning dialectically both as subjugation and agency, subjectivation happens through collectivization.