Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Anthony Trollope's 1882 novel, The Fixed Period, posits a state in which the elderly, at the age of sixty-seven, are to be deposited in a “college,” there to spend a year being taken care of in preparation for their disposal by cremation by having their veins cut before the age of sixty-eight. Justification for this euthanasia is the anticipated ills of old age and the economic benefits to the state of disposing of no longer productive citizens who nevertheless place a burden on society. The issues raised by Trollope remain with us today: What shall we do with the no longer productive elderly? How do we define murder? How shall we dispose of bodies in an era of increasingly limited land? and What are the consequences of an approach to improving the quality of humanity by eliminating those considered to be unfit? Trollope's novel, then, maintains an interest for the contemporary reader.

Keywords

Trollope euthanasia cremation murder eugenics

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anon . 1882. The Fixed Period. Saturday Review, 53 (April 8): 434–35.

Blythe

Ellen Lucy

. 2003. The fixed period: Euthanasia, cannibalism, and colonial extinction in Trollope's Antipodes. 19th Century Contexts, 25, 161–180.

Bromham

A. A.

1984. The contemporary significance of The Old Law. Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 24 (Spring): 327–39.

Collier

1914. Introd. To A view of the art of colonization, by Wakefield

Edward Gibbon

. Reissue. Oxford, UK: Clarendon.

Encyclopedia Brittanica. 1911. 11th ed. s.v. “Cremation.”

Hadas

, ed. 1942. The annals. In The complete works of Tacitus. Trans. Church

A. J.

and Brodribb

W. J.

. New York: Modern Library.

Handley

1997. Introd. to The fixed period. Trollope Society edition. London: Trollope Society.

Hyatt

1998. Comments: A shared history of shame—Sweden's four-decade policy of forced sterilization and the eugenics movement in the United States. Indiana International and Comparative Law Review 8:475–503.

Leuchtenburg

W. E.

1995. The Supreme Court reborn. New York: Oxford University Press.

10.

Moody

1999. Trollope on the net. London: Hambledon Press.

11.

Mullen

1996. The Penguin companion to Trollope. With Munson

James

. London: Penguin.

12.

Nardin

1990. The social critic in Anthony Trollope's novels. Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 30 (Autumn): 679–96.

13.

Skilton

1993. Introd. to The Fixed Period, by Trollope

. World Classics edition. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

14.

Smith

W J.

2000. The culture of death. San Francisco: Encounter Books.

15.

Swainson

[1850] 1987. A review of “The Art of Colonization.” Reissue of two parts of the review originally appearing in the New Zealand Magazine. Auckland, New Zealand: Pettifogging Press.

16.

Thackeray

W. M.

1843. The Irish sketch-book. New York: New World Press.

17.

Trollope

1993. The fixed period. Ed. Skilton

. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

18.

Trollope

[1874] 1999. New Zealand [facsimile edition of portion of Australia and New Zealand]. Christchurch, New Zealand: Kiwi.

19.

Wakefield

E.G.

[1849] 1914. A view of the art of colonization, with present reference to the British Empire. In Letters between a statesman and a colonist. Oxford, UK: Clarendon.

Trollope's The Fixed Period : A Nineteenth-Century Novel Revisited

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References