Fictions of Dementia

Narrative Modes of Presenting Dementia in Anglophone Novels

Susanne Katharina Christ

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9783110789751
• eBook ISBN: 9783110789874
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Taking its cues from both classical and post-classical narratologies, this study explores both forms and functions of the representation of dementia in Anglophone fictions. Initially, dementia is conceptualised as a narrative-epistemological paradox: The more those affected know what it is like to have dementia, the less they can tell about it. Narrative fiction is the only discourse that provides an imaginative glimpse at the subjective experience of dementia in language. The narratological modelling of four 'narrative modes' elaborates how the paradox becomes productive in fiction: Depending on the narrative perspective taken, but also on the type of narration, the technique for representing consciousness and the epistemic strategy of narrating dementia, the respective narrative modes come with different prerequisites and possibilities for narrating dementia. The analysis of four contemporary Anglophone dementia fictions based on the developed model reveals their potential functions: Fiction allows readers to learn about the challenges of dementia, grants them perspective-taking, it trains cognitive flexibility, and explores the meaning of memory, knowledge, narrative and imagination, and thus also offers trajectories of a cultural coping with dementia.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Sigla
• 1 Introduction: Cultural and Literary Fictions of Dementia
• 2 Narrative Modes for the Representation of Dementia
• 3 Elucidating-explaining Dementia, Showing Family Relations, and Highlighting the Power of Ambiguity in Self-Narrated Dementia in Emma Healey’s Elizabeth Is Missing (2014)
• 4 Showing Caring and Coping, Exploring the Limits of Memory and Knowledge, and Celebrating Imagination in the Secondarily Affected Character Narration in Stefan Merrill Block’s The Story of Forgetting (2008)
• 5 Probing Character Proximity, Staging Indeterminacy and Reflecting upon Narrative in the Multi-perspectival Affected Character Narration in Naomi Kruger’s May (2018)
• 6 Integrating Medical Knowledge, Educating Readers, and Shedding a More Positive Light on Life with Dementia in the Inspective Non-Character Narration in Lisa Genova’s Still Alice (2007)
• 7 Results of the Textual Analyses in the Light of the Model of Narrative Modes and Three Hypotheses on Functions
• 8 Conclusion: Cultural Functions of Dementia Fictions
• Index