"Old age ain't no place for sissies": A Look at Allingham's Portrayal of the Older Woman

2004 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Kinsman
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Older Woman

Fiction as a gerontological resource: Norah Hoult's There Were No Windows

2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEANNETTE KING
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Older Woman ◽  
World War ◽  
Self Image ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Second World

ABSTRACTThis paper starts from the premise that novelists have to some extent filled the gap left by mainstream feminism's relative silence about gendered ageing. To develop the argument, it explores the representation of memory loss and its impact on identity and self-image in Norah Hoult's novel, There Were No Windows, which was first published in 1944. The novel is set in London during the Second World War, when the traumas of a city experiencing the Blitz and the blackout reflected the terror and inner darkness experienced by the principal character, Claire Temple, herself a minor novelist, under the onslaught of dementia. There Were No Windows constructs the character of Claire through the combination of her own often-disordered thoughts and the perspectives of those who live with or visit her. This paper focuses throughout on ageing as a gendered experience and the construction of the older woman. It identifies the different gendered discourses of ageing that are imposed on Claire in order to construct her as the female ‘Other’, in the sense theorised by Simone de Beauvoir. It also relates the novel to contemporaneous medical and sociological discourses of ageing and old age. Hoult's implicitly feminist reading of Claire's condition brings the issue of gender to the foreground of the novel's treatment of old age. Through my reading of There Were No Windows, I suggest what it is that fictions of ageing can offer those working in the field of gerontology.

Old Q in the Corner: Jane West, Late Life, and the Nineteenth-Century Novel

Romanticism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-290
Author(s):  
Devoney Looser
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Older Woman ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Female Author ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Jane West

Jane West's late life and writings show a self-consciousness about authorship and a strong perspective on literary value and fame in old age. This essay shows how such a consciousness is revealed in a private letter, her last novel, Ringrove (1827), and her detail-filled will. West's late-life self-conception in a private letter as an ‘old Q in the corner’ deserves to be examined as a metaphor for the ageing female author. Taken together, these three texts demonstrate how West tries to shape readers' responses to old women as writers, using self-deprecating humour as a response to perceived neglect. The results are hardly comic, but they give us the opportunity to examine how a self-consciously older woman puts her words before a mass readership that was not necessarily well disposed to receive them.

scholarly journals Disrupting Temporalities, Multiplying the Self: An Age-Studies Approach to Two Contemporary Plays

2021 ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Núria Casado-Gual ◽  
Inesa Shevchenko-Hotsuliak
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Older Women ◽  
Old Age ◽  
The Self ◽  
Older Woman ◽  
Negative Image ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Age Studies

In our increasingly aged societies, old age continues to be equated with decline (Gullette 2004) and becomes the source of the most invisible yet persistent forms of discrimination, namely, ageism (Butler 1969). Even though theatre, like other artistic forms, has traditionally promoted a negative image of ageing (Mangan 2013), some contemporary plays have begun to favour more complex portrayals of old age. Nevertheless, when considered from a gender-based angle, these portrayals often acquire quite a problematic undertone: while roles for older female actors remain exceptional, many peripheral or, if centred, mainly problematic dramatizations of ageing femininity in the theatre arena fuel age prejudice against older women on and off stage. This article offers an age-focused analysis of two plays that counteract stereotypical images of female ageing through various dramaturgical strategies: Michel Tremblay’s Albertine in Five Times (1984) and Matt Hartley’s Here I Belong (2016). Through a comparative analysis of the Naturalistic and Non-Naturalistic devices employed in the two plays, and the examination of the meanings of age generated by the characterization of the two female protagonists, we hope to demonstrate that Tremblay’s and Hartley’s texts contribute to creating a truly anti-ageist theatre while at the same time enhancing the visibility of the older woman on the stage.

scholarly journals THE ELDERLY CHARACTERS IN DRAMAS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

Astraea ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-60
Author(s):  
Anna GAIDASH
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Tennessee Williams ◽  
Good Luck ◽  
Older Woman ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
Poetic Imagery ◽  
The American South ◽  
Peaceable Kingdom ◽  
Frosted Glass

One of the disturbing issues represented in Williams’ dramas is old age along with aging. The paper analyzes elderly characters in the network of playwright’s selected texts of different periods, in particular, “The Glass Menagerie”, “Sweet Bird of Youth”, “The Night of the Iguana” and “Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore” as well as his lesser-known works “The Frosted Glass Coffin” and “This is the Peaceable Kingdom or Good Luck God” from the perspective of literary gerontology. The representative of the literary traditions of the American South, Williams demonstrates in his dramas the vulnerability and fragility of aging. The tragedy of old age in Williams’ plays is detected in the old age/youth antinomy. The character of a lonely aging woman or a spinster takes often the center stage. Williams’s treatment of his female characters’ (Princess Alexandra and Flora Goforth) sexuality challenges the ageist assumption that older women do not have or should not have intimate relationships. The dramatist renders the mentioned above characters sexually visible in the older woman/younger man relationships without pretence or concealing the corporeal transformations. The close reading of six dramas by Tennessee Williams demonstrates the anxiety of aging and old dramatis personae reflecting social ills. The study discerns the foreshadowing of the epigraphs (from poetry by E. Cummings, H. Crane, E. Dickinson, W. Yeats) implying the anxious aspects of aging and “third age” in four major Williams’s works; the dramatist’s late style represented by “The Frosted Glass Coffin” and “This is the Peaceable Kingdom or Good Luck God” manifests the explicit gerontophobia through rather grotesquely realistic than poetic imagery in the texts’ plot-lines.

Case Study: Evaluation of an Older Woman With Dementia at a University Speech and Hearing Clinic

2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-3
Author(s):  
Andrea Tobochnik ◽  
Kathy Esnlen ◽  
Jennifer Nobles Cora ◽  
Rene Watkins
Keyword(s):  
Older Woman ◽  
Study Evaluation

Emerging Nutrition Gaps in a World of Affluence - Micronutrient Intake and Status Globally

2011 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 238-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Eggersdorfer ◽  
Paul Walter
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Molecular Basis ◽  
Health Benefit ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Micronutrient Deficiencies ◽  
New Science ◽  
Health And Nutrition ◽  
Micronutrient Intake

Nutrition is important for human health in all stages of life - from conception to old age. Today we know much more about the molecular basis of nutrition. Most importantly, we have learnt that micronutrients, among other factors, interact with genes, and new science is increasingly providing more tools to clarify this interrelation between health and nutrition. Sufficient intake of vitamins is essential to achieve maximum health benefit. It is well established that in developing countries, millions of people still suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. However, it is far less recognized that we face micronutrient insufficiencies also in developed countries.

On Geropsychology in the Czech Republic

GeroPsych ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-166
Author(s):  
Hana Stepankova ◽  
Eva Jarolimova ◽  
Eva Dragomirecka ◽  
Irena Sobotkova ◽  
Lenka Sulova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Cognitive Rehabilitation ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Rehabilitation Research

This work provides an overview of psychology of aging and old age in the Czech Republic. Historical roots as well as recent activities are listed including clinical practice, cognitive rehabilitation, research, and the teaching of geropsychology.

Images of Aging in the Psychotherapeutic Context

GeroPsych ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva-Marie Kessler ◽  
Catherine E. Bowen
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Aging Process ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Psychotherapeutic Process ◽  
Images Of Aging ◽  
Client Communication

Both psychotherapists and their clients have mental representations of old age and the aging process. In this conceptual review, we draw on available research from gerontology, social and developmental psychology, and communication science to consider how these “images of aging” may affect the psychotherapeutic process with older clients. On the basis of selected empirical findings we hypothesize that such images may affect the pathways to psychotherapy in later life, therapist-client communication, client performance on diagnostic tests as well as how therapists select and apply a therapeutic method. We posit that interventions to help both older clients and therapists to reflect on their own images of aging may increase the likelihood of successful treatment. We conclude by making suggestions for future research.

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