Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Acknowledgments ix
4. Foreword xi
5. Part One
6. The Tattered Web of Cultural Meanings 1
7. The Meaning of Life and the Meaning of Old Age 9
8. The Virtues and Vices of the Elderly 41
9. The Meaning of Risk, Rights, and Responsibility in Aging America 63
10. Legal Reform and Aging: Current Issues, Troubling Trends 99
11. Victorian Morality in a New Key 115
12. Part Two
13. Subjectivity: Literature, Imagination, and Frailty 131
14. Introduction 131
15. Reminiscence and the Life Review: Prospects and Retrospects 135
16. The Wizard of Pilgrimage, or What Color Is Our Brick Road? 163
17. Growing Old Together: Neighborhood Communality Among the Elderly 179
18. Growing Old Together: Neighborhood Communality Among the Elderly 199
19. Frailty and Strength: The Dialectic of Aging 235
20. Appendix: A Select Bibliography of Aging and Meaning 245
21. Aging and Meaning: A Bibliographical Essay 247
22. A Select Bibliography 255
23. Contributors 275
24. Notes 277
25. Index 299