scholarly journals THE ELDERLY CHARACTERS IN DRAMAS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

Astraea ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-60
Author(s):  
Anna GAIDASH

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.

Romanticism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-270
Author(s):  
Mark Sandy

Attending to the hoped-for connection between young and older generations, this essay revisits Wordsworth's poetic fascination with the elderly and the question of what, if any, consolation for emotional and physical loss could be attained for growing old. Wordsworth's imaginative impulse is to idealise the elderly into transcendent figures, which offers the compensation of a harmonious vision to the younger generation for the losses of old age that, in all likelihood, they will themselves experience. The affirmation of such a unified and compensatory vision is dependent upon the reciprocity of sympathy that Wordsworth's poetry both sets into circulation and calls into question. Readings of ‘Simon Lee’, ‘I know an aged Man constrained to dwell’, and ‘The Old Cumberland Beggar’ point up the limitations of sympathy and vision (physical and poetic) avowed in these poems as symptomatic of Wordsworth's misgivings about the debilitating effects of growing old and old age. Finally, Wordsworth's unfolding tragedy of ‘Michael’ is interpreted as reinforcing a frequent pattern, observed elsewhere in his poetry, whereby idealised figures of old men transform into disturbingly spectral second selves of their younger counterparts or narrators. These troubling transformations reveal that at the heart of Wordsworth's poetic vision of old age as a harmonious, interconnected, and consoling state, there are disquieting fears of disunity, disconnection, disconsolation, and, lastly, death.


Author(s):  
Divya Raj ◽  
Subramaniam Santhi ◽  
G. J. Sara Sapharina

AbstractObjectivesThis study finds out the effectiveness of neurobic exercise program on memory and depression among elderly residing in old age homes.MethodsThe non-probability purposive sampling technique was used for sample selection. Wechsler's memory scale (WMS-IV) and Geriatric depression scale (GDS) were the instruments used to assess the memory and depression among elderly during the pretest and posttest, respectively and the researcher had developed data sheet to collect information about the background variables using interview technique.ResultsThe neurobic exercise program was found to be effective in reducing depression among elderly residing in old age homes. There was a significant difference (p<0.001) in the level of depression had been found during the pretest and posttest in the interventional group. There was a statistically significant difference (p<0.001) found between the study group and in the control group. There was significant correlation (r=0.417, p<0.05) found between the memory and depression during the pretest in the study group among the elderly. A statistically significant association (p<0.05) found in the mean scores of depression and marital status of the elderly during the pretest in the study group and there was a significant association (p<0.01) found in the mean scores of depression and the gender of the elderly during the pretest and posttest in the non interventional group were found.ConclusionsThe findings suggested that neurobic exercise program is an effective intervention in improving memory and reducing depression.


Author(s):  
Tomáš Černěnko ◽  
Klaudia Glittová

The aim of the paper is to describe the supply of public services in the field of social protection - old age (represented by expenditures in group 10, class 2 of COFOG classification) in relation to the demand for these services represented by the population in the age group 62+ related to the size and region of the local government unit. The analysis of supply and demand takes place at the level of individual local governments and the results are then presented in relation to the size of the municipality and the region. Two approaches were used for the analysis. The first focuses on the description of the current situation through the categorization of local governments according to the approach to the provision of services, and the second consists in regression analysis. The results of the regression analysis suggest that the size of the municipality and the region do not play as important a role in terms of access to the provision of the examined services as indicated by the first, descriptive analysis. To find a "pattern" for local authorities to decide on access to services for the elderly, further research will be needed that takes into account several socio-economic indicators.


Fitoterapia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-61
Author(s):  
V. V. Krutov ◽  

Keywords: health, Spirit, energy, synergistic approach, gerontology, quality longevity, allopathic medicine, informational-energetic medicine. The article discusses the issue of active aging strategies that differ from those used in traditional medicine. Practice shows that the resources of the latter are insufficient for successfully overcoming the systemic problems of people, growing with aging and maximum in old age. The accumulation of the problematic nature of the physical body in long-lived people requires a special, comprehensive approach to treatment with penetration into the root nature of a person. Based on innovative knowledge, including data from his own research, the author is talking about a synergistic approach that includes, along with the existing practice of treating the elderly, methods of informational- energetic medicine. Medicine, working at the level of the subtle, causal sphere of a person, where the roots of all his diseases lie and are revealed. This way of solving, the author believes, bears the maximum healing effect for the body on all levels of its multidimensionality – substance, information, energy.


2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
I O Nnatu ◽  
F Mahomed ◽  
A Shah

The population of the elderly in most developed nations is on the increase. Furthermore, the prevalence of mental disorder amongst elderly offenders is high. The true extent of `elderly' crime is unknown because much of it goes undetected and unreported. This leads to a failure to detect mental illness in such offenders. Court diversion schemes may improve recognition of mental illness but these schemes usually tend to deal with the more severe crimes. This may result in an overestimation of the amount of serious crime committed by the elderly and a failure to detect mental illness amongst those who commit less serious crimes. Efforts to service this hidden morbidity call for multi-agency collaboration. Improved detection and reporting of crimes is essential if mental health difficulties in the elderly are not to go unnoticed. The needs of elderly mentally-disordered offenders are complex and fall within the expertise of old age and forensic psychiatry, without being adequately met by either one. Therefore, consideration should be given to the development of a tertiary specialist forensic old-age psychiatry service.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S2) ◽  
pp. 2020-2020
Author(s):  
C.A. de Mendonça Lima ◽  
R.M. Rodrigues

Suicide is a typical phenomenon of the elderly and mainly among men. Besides the importance of suicide in terms of public health there is fewer interest to prevent suicide in old age. This can be explained by stigma, poor evaluation of the dimension of the problem and lack of politic will.Suicide prevention and the care of survivors of suicide depend on the mental health network of care. Interventions to reduce suicide can be made at individual level and at level of the development of policies and strategies. The detection of the persons at risk of suicide and the management of the suicide attempt are two main strategies to prevent suicide. Both received recently an important support from WHO with its publication mhGAP Intervention Guide which was conceived to be used in non-specialized health-care settings by health-care providers working at first- and second-level facilities. It includes guidance on evidence-based interventions to make the diagnosis and manage a number of priority conditions, including suicide.Our review of the literature pointed to the necessity to develop additional research to determine:•the role of somatic disorders as precipitant factor;•the role on suicide of the pre-morbid personality, cognitive functioning, social support and recent and chronic stressing events;•the participation of normal and pathological ageing on the expression of the suicide behavior;•the biological markers of suicide in old age;•the potential impact on suicide rates of educational interventions for the general public and for caregivers.


2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 1133-1153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Barnhart ◽  
Lisa Peñaloza
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lono Wijayanti ◽  
Siti Damawiyah

Background: Everyone would want to enjoy their old age in a healthy condition both physically and spiritually, but the fact is that old age is more synonymous with periods of decline in physical, mental, and human interest. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to Identify the description of understanding the meaning of life from a health perspective for the elderly at the Panti Griya Werdha Jambangan in Surabaya. Methods: This study is a quantitative study with a descriptive design. The population in this study were all the elderly who live in the home for the werdha Jambangan with a total of 60 elderly and the sample used was 56 respondents using simple random sampling. The variable in this study is the understanding of the meaning of life from a health perspective in the elderly. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and presented in a frequency distribution table. Results: The results showed that out of 56 elderly people at the Werdha Jambangan Nursing Home in Surabaya, 73.2% of the respondents were 60-74 years old, 73.2% were female, and most of them 55.4% had an understanding of the meaning of a moderate life. Conclusion: Getting an understanding of the meaning of life requires a long and continuous process. A person who already has an understanding of the meaning of his life will be more prosperous and happier in life.Key words: Understanding the meaning of life, health perspective, elderly


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