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Kibria Nasir, University of Birmingham, United KingdomAbstract
This paper investigates the psychosocial and cultural dimensions of aging and leadership through a comparative literary analysis of Shakespeare’s King Lear and the Ramayana’s King Dasharatha. Both aging monarchs, central to their cultural imaginaries, experience an erosion of power accompanied by emotional and identity crises. Their trajectories reveal aging as a site of vulnerability—not only physically or cognitively but also in the psychosocial realms of grief, loss, and fractured familial bonds. By drawing on literary narratives as cultural texts, the paper explores how societies construct meaning around elderhood, succession, and moral responsibility. King Lear dramatizes aging as a descent into existential crisis, while Dasharatha embodies the emotional cost of duty-bound sacrifice. Through this cross-cultural lens, the paper highlights how literature both reflects and shapes societal narratives of aging leadership—revealing the emotional burden of legacy and the tension between wisdom and irrelevance. Positioned at the intersection of literary analysis, age studies, and psychosocial inquiry, this paper contributes to interdisciplinary conversations on aging and leadership. These insights offer a nuanced perspective on challenges in political leadership, succession planning, and age-related bias—encouraging reflection on how emotional intelligence and cultural context should inform leadership models and policy frameworks in aging societies. In doing so, the paper aligns with IAFOR’s 2025–2029 thematic foci on Leadership and Human Intelligence, demonstrating how cultural narratives can enrich both policy dialogue and global understandings of elderhood.
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