Abstract
If the old body is usually read as a synonym of fragility and upcoming illness, even though not the case for most elderly citizens, the reality is that the longer we live, the increased probability of being affected by different illnesses cannot be eluded or denied. In Doris Lessing’s The Diary of a Good Neighbour and Margaret Forster’s Have the Men Had Enough? the reader is invited to participate in the day-to-day routines of two aged female protagonists, as well as to empathize with their inner feelings as they go through their last life stage. In fact, their ‘dys-appearing’ bodies, marked by their respective terminal illnesses, force these characters to grow closer to those around them and to accept the help of their families and friends, despite their desire to keep their free will and independence until the very end. The analysis of the two novels within the framework of ageing studies aims to show the contradictions existing between a growing ageing society and the negative cultural connotations of old age in Western society and the need to revise them.
Highlights
If the old body is usually read as a synonym of fragility and upcoming illness, even though not the case for most elderly citizens, the reality is that the longer we live, the increased probability of being affected by different illnesses cannot be eluded or denied
Had Enough? [13], the two novels that are analyzed in this paper in the light of the literature related to the ageing process from the fields of sociology and social sciences, are a case in point that prove fiction to be a valuable source to reflect on the limiting social meanings and connotations attached to the ageing body, when related to illness and infirmity
Following Drew Leder’s tenets, Hepworth recognizes that in the fiction he analyzes there is a moment in the life of some of the protagonists, just as there is in the life of present-day English citizens, when an intense pain, a mild dysfunction, or even a life-threatening illness, brings the individual to full awareness that he or she is in old age
Summary
Despite the evidence that the population is ageing at a worldwide level, old age is still related to words such as lack of productivity and loss. Turner [1] have argued in several studies, those old citizens who have been successful in keeping the signs of ageing at bay are seen as having reached some kind of social success and, they are admired and praised Those who clearly show the signs of ageing on their bodies are perceived as somehow careless. Despite the fact that society is ageing, old age, the old and ill body, is increasingly erased from our everyday life despite the fact that Western society is ageing exponentially Such a dichotomy is present and questioned in contemporary fiction. Woodward [10] and Barbara Frey Waxman [11] have published studies in which novels are analyzed from the prism of the ageing process as lived and experienced by ageing and old characters Throughout their analysis, they agree on the fact that, despite living in an increasingly ageing society,. Had Enough? [13], the two novels that are analyzed in this paper in the light of the literature related to the ageing process from the fields of sociology and social sciences, are a case in point that prove fiction to be a valuable source to reflect on the limiting social meanings and connotations attached to the ageing body, when related to illness and infirmity
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