Taking upon ourselves the entirety of our human state: young writers imagining what it is to be old

This paper focuses on Othering as a cultural form of ageism, discussed in some detail by Simone de Beauvoir in The Coming of Age. Through Othering, older people are treated as fundamentally different to the rest of (younger) society with consequences including social alienation, oppression and economic inequality. However, whilst clearly detrimental to older people themselves, this distancing is also malignant for the rest of society in diminishing the value of a good portion of the life course. The paper argues that this process of setting apart can be reduced by imaginative and creative depictions of old age, working through plots that depict older age as both unique yet continuous with earlier life stages, and equally capable of holding meaning, value and authenticity. Narrative gerontology, for instance, argues that even in conditions of constraint, choices can be made over plots, in particular whether the plot of late life and old age is viewed as one of ‘tragedy’ or ‘adventure’. After setting out this theoretical framework, the paper explores four novels, written by younger people, which are exemplary in their capacity for imaginative empathy. Succeeding in bridging the gap between generational space and time, in some cases and especially for older women, they demonstrate how old age can in fact provide the first opportunity for choice, selfdetermination and agency as well as for fulfilling authentic goals that were incompatible with those chosen at earlier points in the life course. Since a key mechanism of ageism is failure of the imagination, the paper recommends that listening to and composing stories of old age should be a part of the educational curriculum everywhere.