Literary mentorship on the art of living, aging and dying

Abstract

This article offers a fresh examination of Mitch Albom's bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie (1997) from a perspective of literary age studies, with a special focus on the concept of later-life mentorship. The classic mentor figure, commonly seen as the archetype of a wise old teacher, is revived through the healing power of an end-of-life narrative. The mentorial relationship between a young man and an old man shows that the personal growth is as an ongoing and ageless process of becoming that can lead to wisdom and a better understanding of aging and living-with-dying. It also reveals that later-life narratives of mentorship are an integral part of the transmission of knowledge and humanistic values to establish solid relationships between generations. Life lessons with Morrie, collected in the form of a memoir, provide readers with important tools to learn to accept life in all its dimensions, and show how literary narratives of growing older can help deconstruct negative western notions of old age and lead to more meaningful lives in all life stages.

Keywords: Dying; Literary gerontology; Memoir; Mentorship; Old age; Wisdom.