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| author | Heather Lynn Althoff |
| title | Caregiving with Cather: Aging, Illness, Diminishment, and Dying in Modern America |
| abstract | Willa Cather (1873-1947) explores aging, illness, caregiving, diminishment and dying in several of her novels and short stories.
In her mid-50s, when she hit her literary stride, Cather felt personally concerned with these issues and sensitive to the memories of the deficient caregiving she
had performed in her younger years. These six Cather novels and two short stories: O Pioneers! (1913), A Lost Lady (1923), The Professor's House (1925), My Mortal
Enemy (1926), Shadows on the Rock (1931), "Old Mrs. Harris" (1932), and "Neighbor Rosicky" (1932), and Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940) discuss the burdens of
caregiving, the ways caregivers cope, the diminishment of the mind or the body, and issues of dependence. In answer to the questions and concerns she raises in these
works, Cather examines and resolves her fears (and ours) with her novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927). In Death Comes for the Archbishop, Cather depicts the
ideal scenario and tools necessary for managing the aging, dying, caregiving periods of life. Through the fictional works of Willa Cather and a variety of social
science, psychological, and medical texts, in this dissertation, I explore how the processes of aging, being ill, diminishing, and dying can be done well--with
acceptance, grace, and joy. Included in the final chapter is my personal testimony as a caregiver, where I reconcile my experience, embrace the human condition,
relieve my psyche of fear, and find the elusive meaning in suffering. |
| school | The Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, Drew University |
| degree | D.Litt. (2017) |
| advisor | Laura Winters |
| committee | Liana Piehler |
| full text | HLAlthoff.pdf |
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