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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2451/31535
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| Title: | Sweet Old Things and Dirty Old Men: The Vices and Virtues of Old Age in
Muriel Spark's Memento Mori |
| Authors: | England, Suzanne
Rust, Martha |
| Keywords: | morality, memento mori, virtues, will, living spaces, literature |
| Issue Date: | 4-Apr-2012 |
| Abstract: | Through the lens of Muriel Spark’s dark comedic novel, Memento
Mori, this paper explores questions of morality, mortality, and the
moral choices and performances in old age and in the systems and places
of care. Spark’s elderly characters are complex moral
actors—some virtuous and some decidedly not—who have been
receiving mysterious phone calls telling them simply, “Remember
you must die.” We, the co-authors, are from two different
disciplines, namely Renaissance and medieval literature, and social work
and critical gerontology. Among the questions that interest us is the
paradox of a master narrative that on the one hand exempts the old from
moral criticism yet holds them to a higher moral
standard—essentially positioning them as moral nonentities, and
relieving the old, their caretakers, and society of moral
responsibility. Another is the question of whether moral agency in old
age has distinctive aspects, and whether consciousness of one’s
impending mortality effects moral reasoning and performance. In this
paper we offer our individual readings of the ways the novel opens up
conceptual space in aging theory, and conclude with our thoughts about
what our collaboration suggests for continuing cross-disciplinary dialogue. |
| Description: | Paper submitted to The Journal of Aging Studies March 27, 2012 |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/31535 |
| Appears in Collections: | Suzanne England's Collection
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