John Updike's Thought Experiment on Ageism

Abstract

This article extracts from John Updike's novel, Seek My Face (2002), a thought experiment in which intergenerational learning enables a younger person to overcome ageism by recognition of an older person's inner beauty. The fictional interaction entails an interview of a 78-year-old female artist by a 27-year-old female journalist from New York City at the older woman's home in central Vermont during a single day in the early spring of 2001. The literary thought experiment is a viable tool for gerontological research.