The Life, Old Age, and Death of a Working-Class Woman (1949)

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A personal and philosophical reflection on the question of old age as a limit concept of Western thought. A few years ago, Didier Eribon’s mother entered a retirement home. Over the course of several months, she lost her physical and cognitive autonomy, and despite his resistance, Eribon and his brothers were compelled to place her in a nursing home. The doctor had warned that she’d rapidly decline. And indeed, refusing the degradation and humiliation of her condition, Eribon’s mother died just a few weeks later. In The Life, Old Age, and Death of a Working-Class Woman , Eribon furthers the archeological, historical, sociological, political, and personal reflection he began with Returning to Reims , this time to look at the question of old age. How does our society treat the elderly, especially the very elderly? What are the daily humiliations the elderly are forced to suffer? What are the conditions at the end of life? Threaded