A Reorientation Towards the Invisible: An Analysis of Vulnerability in Joanna Cannon’s Three Things About Elsie

Abstract

This article approaches the notion of vulnerability in the context of ageing. Amid the current sanitary crisis, vulnerability seems to have become more evident than ever. The crisis has challenged the way we approach vulnerability, illness, or death, and also, how we treat and look after the old. In this article, I suggest analysing how vulnerability is manifested in ageing and which are the mechanisms used to invisibilise the old in contemporary societies by reading Joanna Cannon’s novel Three Things about Elsie (2018). In the midst of a pandemic that has brought to the fore new discourses of ageism across the world and that has pointed at the old as the most vulnerable group in our societies, this novel gives voice to one of them, giving them value and calling for a reconsideration of the ways we can empathise with and care for the old.

Keywords

• vulnerability
• ageing
• illness
• Cannon (Joanna)
• Butler (Judith)
• Le Blanc (Guillaume)