Centre for Policy on Ageing



"The changes and chances of this mortal life" — aspects of ageing in the fiction of Stanley Middleton
Author(s)	Mike Hepworth
Journal title	Ageing and Society, vol 21, part 6, November 2001
Pages	pp 721-738
Keywords	Ageing process ; Fiction ; Attitudes to the old of general public ; Social interaction.
Annotation	Sociological research shows that individuals attempt to make sense of the meaning of the ageing process in the course of conversations with other people. The social construction of ageing is therefore an interactive process during which ideas and beliefs about ageing are negotiated and exchanged. Novels are a rich and easily accessible source of data on the social construction of the meaning of ageing during the course of social interaction. This paper explores the imaginative contribution of the English novelist Stanley Middleton to our awareness of these subtle processes. It is suggested that Middleton's fiction provides a particularly rewarding example of the contribution of the novelist to our understanding of the origins of the experience of growing older as a product of social interaction. (KJ/RH).
Accession Number	CPA-020318211 A
Classmark	BG: HKF: TOB: TMA
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.