Rags that comfort: feminine aging in Lygia Fagundes Telles

Abstract

Lygia Fagundes Telles published As horas nuas (Naked Hours) in 1989, introducing Rosa Ambrósio, an outstanding character who faces the daily life of old age after a career dedicated to art. An actress and an interpreter of life, Rosa Ambrósio, after leaving the stage, feels herself being interpreted from the perspective of other people’s prejudices: the look they direct towards her now sees the other in her, the elderly woman, about whom it is common to have a generalized and stereotyped opinion or to have no opinion at all, an indifference that spares the reader the fear of looking. The figure of Rosa Ambrósio personifies a trajectory from the stage to oblivion, from public to private. Observing her journey allows for a glimpse at the importance of literature’s mediating exercise to raise awareness about how we deal with old age, especially with female aging. Our analysis is based on the following questions: to what extent do the new roles now assumed by the elderly oppose stereotypes and prejudices, and to what extent do they revalidate, in new formats, pernicious positions that should have been overcome long ago? For the elaboration of this article, texts of Simone de Beauvoir, Ecléa Bosi and Robert Burtler were researched, which, although published in the 1960s and 1970s, are still references in the study of old age, as well as more recent publications such as those of Guita Debert, António Fonseca, Miriam Goldenberg and Sibila Marques, among others. It is concluded that the negative view of old age, if still strongly ingrained, has already proven to be a mistake, and that exclusionary stereotypes are beginning to be replaced by a gradual change of perspective, in part, a result of the expanding research in the area, involving different sectors, methods and approaches, and emphasizing the variety and inconclusiveness of definitions on the subject.