Two approaches to the care of an elder parent: a study of Robert Anderson's I Never Sang for My Father and Sawako Ariyoshi's Kokotsu no hito [The Twilight Years].
Care of an elder patient is often regarded by the children as an unwanted burden. Anderson's 1968 play, I Never Sang for My Father, and Ariyoshi's 1972 novel, Kokotsu no hito [The Twilight years], show how two different families of two different cultures (American and Japanese) respond to this crisis. Both texts arrive at dramatically different conclusions: in one the children, Gene and Alice, prove unwilling or unable to cope with the problems posed by their father's need; in the other Akiko, though nearly overwhelmed by the burden of her father-in-law's illness, emerges richer for the experience.
Department of English, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale 62901.
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Donow
D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003482:Custodial Care; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005220:Fathers; D006701:Home Nursing / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008093:Literature, Modern; D014481:United States