Abstract
In their chapter, Susan Ireland and Patrice Proulx offer a comparative analysis of Nancy Huston’s Dolce agonia and Michèle Sarde’s Constance et la cinquantaine, two works that center on middle-aged and elderly characters and that address complex issues related to aging such as physical and mental decline. These novels offer nuanced depictions of the aging female body and juxtapose different types of “decline” and “progress” narratives. Examining the ways in which the female protagonists redefine their identity through shared reflections on the process of aging, Ireland and Proulx also highlight the important role played by women’s supportive and lasting friendships in contributing to this vital redefinition of the aging self.
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Notes
- 1.
Wilfried Hauke directed this unscripted 2002 film, Schwestern im Leben (Sisters in Life), which centers around three former companions of Ingmar Bergman, Scandinavian actresses Bibi Andersson, Ghita Nørby, and Liv Ullman.
- 2.
Although Sontag identifies a double standard that negatively impacts women, Dolce agonia also points out that men, too, are affected by society’s general revulsion toward the aging body. Huston’s character Aron comments on the lack of physical contact experienced by the very old in general, as he views himself through the young Chloé’s eyes, certain that she would be “révulsée par le contact de ma peau parcheminée et squameuse … Plus d’amour de peau pour nous autres vieillards, plus de contact ni de caresses” (Dolce 205).
- 3.
The full quotation from Greer reads: “Only when a woman ceases the fretful struggle to be beautiful can she turn her gaze outward. … She can at last transcend the body that was what others principally valued her for, and be set free both from their expectations and her own capitulation to them. It is quite impossible to explain to younger women that this new invisibility … is a desirable condition” (378).
- 4.
An earlier comment by Alice serves as an implicit link to Gallois’s remark, when she tells the other Félines: “Enfin cessons de nous raconter que la loi qui régit notre vie demeure celle de la séduction” (154).
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Ireland, S., Proulx, P.J. (2016). Redefining the Self: Explorations of Aging in Michèle Sarde’s Constance et la cinquantaine and Nancy Huston’s Dolce agonia . In: Ramond Jurney, F., McPherson, K. (eds) Women’s Lives in Contemporary French and Francophone Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40850-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40850-7_8
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