engleski

The Golden Years: Myth vs. Reality

In the corpus of the academic novel, the paper analyses the American cultural attitudes to age and ageing. While in earlier historical periods and in different cultures, older members of the community were respected for their wisdom and life experiences and considered to be a valuable source of knowledge that is passed down to the younger generations, in today's youth-oriented and death-denying society, age is a liability and the underlying cause of numerous stereotypes and negative prejudices. The myth of the golden years is lost at the expense of an older population that is disabled not because of their mental or physical shortcomings but due to age-related bias. In this thematic complex, the academic novel is particularly interesting because it touches on university professors to whom their universities are indebted for their long-term service and dedication to the academic community. Despite their being older, they still have valuable cognitive and emotional competencies and academic skills which tend to be underestimated by their environment. The fictional world of the American academic novel critically questions the conflict between self-perception and others' perceptions. The American culture's expectations and assumptions are evident in John Williams's Stoner (1965) and Philip Roth's The Dying Animal (2001), which have been chosen as illustrative examples of American academic novels that realistically depict age and ageing. The perceptions of ageing represented in the fictional world of the selected American academic novels are juxtaposed to the current reality of retirees in America. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the important ethical and social issues of ageing by analysing selected topics, motifs, and characters from the academic novel genre and to help develop awareness of human dignity and respect for the elderly.

Ageing, retirement, American culture, academic community, American academic novel, Stoner, The Dying Animal

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