EDEBİYATTA YAŞLANMA: ODİSE DESTANI'NDAN YAŞLI ADAM VE DENİZ'E
AGING IN LITERATURE: FROM THE ODYSSEY TO THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Author : Visam MANSUR
Number of pages : 317-323

Abstract

Aging is a complex term that involves various dimensions: social, cultural, psychological, and biological. A lot of fictitious narratives, in verse and prose, ancient and modern, fantastical and realistic, depict aged men and women as mostly irrational, nostalgic, suicidal, and shortsighted, among many other traits. King Duncan in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, is shortsighted and lacks the prudence needed to survive among traitors and evil kinsmen. King Lear, in Shakespeare’s King Lear, foolishly squanders his wealth and kingdom among unfaithful daughters and kinsmen with a tragic outcome. Likewise, the aging Fouan, in Zola’s La- Terre, is mistreated, smothered and burnt by Butea, his second son, because of miscalculation and diminished capabilities. Willy Loman, in Arthur Miller’s the Death of a Salesman, is shown, at a senior age, as self-destructive, nostalgic and over emotional. He ends killing himself, thinking mistakenly he is doing the right thing. Fiction echoes the bitterness the aged encounter late in their lives. In most literary texts, old age is associated with reduction in wit and physical capabilities. This reduction is either matched by lack of self-esteem or pathetically exaggerated self-esteem that verges on the suicidal as is the case with Santiago in the Old Man and the Sea, and Odysseus in the Odyssey.

Keywords

Aging, Literature, Odysseus, Hemingway, Homer

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