SOURCE: Code, Lorraine. “Persons and Others.” In Power, Gender, Values, edited by Judith Genova, pp. 143-71. Edmonton: Academic Printing & Publishing, 1987.

In the following essay, Code explores issues of responsibility, morality, and dependency in Sarton's As We Are Now.

I Introduction

In her short novel As We Are Now,¹ the American novelist May Sarton tells a story of the personal disintegration of a woman in a nursing home for the aged. This disintegration is aided and encouraged by the systematically degrading nature of her treatment by the women in charge of the home, and by the gradual severing of all her personal ties. I want to use this novel to raise some epistemological and moral questions about interaction with human beings of all ages, and about interaction with the aged in particular. My purpose is to try to understand the moral requirements of situations where persons have others in...