An intersectional lens: challenging, resisting, and embracing old age in Lore Segal’s “Ladies Lunch”
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Abstract
Fictional narratives about female friendships in old age, Chivers (2003) argues, can be part of “constructive narratives of aging” in an “imaginary world that can reflect and especially affect circulating social thought.” Such a representation of friendship in old age is at the core of Lore Segal’s short story cycle “Ladies Lunch” (2023). In this narrative analysis, intersectionality is used as a lens to investigate age, ability, gender, and class in Lore Segal’s fiction in order to investigate the stories’ intrinsic mechanisms of resisting, challenging, and embracing old age in order to counter ageist stereotypes.
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