Chronological Ordering and the Representation of Old Age. The Integration of Literary Theory in Literary Gerontology

AnnaLena Hållner

Linköping University, Sweden

In the academic field of literary gerontology, fictional texts by internationally established authors such as Philip Roth, Doris Lessing, and Thomas Mann are analyzed in function of their representation of the ageing process. My aim with this paper is to draw attention to the textualizing and rhetorical strategies that shape narratives. All too often, literature is approached by gerontologists as a mirror of lived experience, instead of as a fabricated world in words. Moreover, concepts like ‘chronology’ are taken for granted in the analysis of an ageing character or in a retrospective story-telling. I want to challenge chronology as unquestionable structure for the ageing process as well as for the story of ageing. This paper focuses upon how the chronology of the narrative shapes conceptions of representations of old age, and put forward the question: what happens when the chronological order and the linearity are disrupted?

The reality of the chronological order has dominated the academic field of literary gerontology. The narrative of ageing is commonly to be understood in the light of succession of time. Narrative ‘anachronies’ are, according to Gérard Genette (1980), discordance between the story and the narrative. Furthermore, anachronies have implications for the literary character and the correspondance between the narrative and the character. The influence of chronological order is not denied but in need of scrutiny.

My paper focuses on narratological tools as ways of unlocking the patterns of causality and completion in the representations of old age. In particular, the constructed life story of a literary character in a trilogy (1980-2003) by the Swedish author Sigrid Combüchen will be studied.