Concluding narratives of a career with dementia: accounts of Iris Murdoch at her death

Obituaries and other accounts of well-known people at their death offer a n arrative defining identity through the life story. It is particularly poign ant when the story is told of an author, and draws upon not only life cours e metaphors but also features of the author's fiction. In this paper we loo k at a case where the dementia of a famous author figures in the tributes a t her death. The predominant narrative of dementia has until recently been that of a tragic loss of self. This has reinforced an image of social death . Biomedical determinism has similarly focused on the disease, rather than seeing the person and allowing their voice to be heard. While Iris Murdoch may not have wanted tributes to tell her. story, they have allowed us to ex amine conventional narratives of a person with dementia. We chart the 'care er' of a person with dementia, and their perceived transformation of identi ty, defined in terms of being demented rather than with dementia. Bad and g ood are attributed to aspects of Iris Murdoch's life through a repertoire o f available stereotypes. These appear to involve the retrospective applicat ion of characteristics of dementia, along with those of goodness and purity . Common gender representations relating to Iris Murdoch's married life and the caring situation are interwoven in the accounts. We are told a story t hat reflects and reproduces conventional narratives of the life course and of dementia, characterising the deceased in terms of a moral career.