Identity in Old Age. Reconceptualizing Ageing through Alice Munro’s Short Fiction

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2019-06Author
Gort Paniello, Marta
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Gort Paniello, Marta;
.
(2019)
.
Identity in Old Age. Reconceptualizing Ageing through Alice Munro’s Short Fiction.
http://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/71337.
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In our progressively older society, ageing studies are acquiring more importance as a research domain in the social sciences, and the study of literature is gaining ground in this interdisciplinary field. Short stories are one of the most suitable literary genres to examine the representations of old age, because they throw light on the subtleties of human psychology from different perspectives. Through a close reading of four short stories by Alice Munro, this dissertation studies how the famous Canadian writer has portrayed old age in her short fiction, and to what extent the process of ageing affects the identity of her older characters. In addition to these two research questions, and by taking into account short stories written in different periods, the study also tries to observe whether the portrayal of ageing has changed throughout Munro's career. The analysis of the short stories selected will prove that retirement, internment in residential homes and dementia directly affect the identity of the older protagonists. Still, as will be shown, these characters do not completely lose their sense of personhood and learn to adapt to their new lifestyle. It can be concluded that Alice Munro depicts the process of ageing through a multifaceted approach, portraying both its deficiencies and strengths.
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