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Despite the progressive ageing of a worldwide population, negative attitudes towards old age have proliferated thanks to cultural constructs and myths that, for decades, have presented old age as a synonym of decay, deterioration and loss. Moreover, even though every human being knows he/she will age and that ageing is a process that cannot be stopped, it always seems distant, far off in the future and, therefore, remains invisible. In this paper, I aim to analyse the invisibility of old age and its spaces through two contemporary novels and their ageing females protagonists –Maudie Fowler in Doris Lessing’s The Diary of a Good Neighbour and Erica March in Rose Tremain’s The Cupboard. Although invisible to the rest of society, these elderly characters succeed in becoming significant in the lives of younger protagonists who, immersed in their active lives, become aware of the need to enlarge our vision of old age. Keywords: Old age, ageing, youth, environment, invisibility, culture, body, self, society. Resumen: A pesar del progresivo envejecimiento de la población mundial, actitudes negativas hacia la tercera edad han proliferado gracias a construcciones culturales y mitos que, durante décadas, han representado la vejez como sinónimo de deterioro y pérdida. Los seres humananos somos conscientes de que el proceso de envejecimiento es imparable; no obstante, siempre nos parece muy lejano, parte de un futuro que preferimos no visualizar y, en consecuencia, el concepto de vejez permanece invisible. En este artículo, pretendo analizar la vejez como un espacio invisible de nuestra socieadd a través de dos novelas inglesas contemporáneas protagonizadas por dos personajes femeninos bien entrados en la tercera edad –Madie Fowler en The Diary of a Good Neighbour de Doris Lessing y Erica March en The Cupboard de Rose Tremain. Aunque invisibles para el resto de la sociedad, Maudie y Erica, a sus ochenta y tantos, se convierten en parte esencial y significativa de la vida de dos protagonistas más jóvenes que, inmersos en sus activas vidas, acaban cuestionando el espacio físico y simbólicos que ocupa la vejez en nuestra sociedad. Palabras clave: Vejez, envejecer, juventud, espacio, invisibilidad, invisible, cultura, cuerpo, personalidad, sociedad. Despite the reiterative affirmation from different media sources that the world population is ageing and the action from a number of associations to instigate all governments around the world to take measures in front of this coming reality, the terms ‘ageing’ and ‘old age’ are * Fecha de recepción: abril 2005 Fecha de aceptación y versión final: mayo 2005 ** Profesora Asociada, Departamento de Filología Inglesa y Lingüística, Universidad de Lleida; moro@dal.udl.es. Invisible Environments: Old Age and its Spaces 172 Maricel Oró Piqueras Odisea, no 6, ISSN 1578-3820, 2005, 171-180 still surrounded by a stereotypical negative aura. Old age has traditionally been associated with decay, deterioration and loss. The prevailing images of our Western society relate old age with the last stage in the life course in which the individual is not only deprived of a young and gracious body, but of a full social life and even economic abundance. As Kathleen Woodward supports, “[i]n every culture, age, like any other important category, is organized hierarchically. In the West youth is the valued term, the point of reference for defining who is old,” and concludes by stating that “in the West, our representations of old age reflect a dominant gerontophobia” (Woodward 1991: 6, 7). Therefore, old age has remained and still remains invisible to most of those who have not reached it, energetic people who form an active part of society and who usually fail to notice ageing citizens and their spaces which contain both the richness of a past life and the paucity of their present state. This is precisely the situation described by Rose Tremain in The Cupboard (1981) and by Doris Lessing in The Diary of a Good Neighbour (1984). Both novels present two main characters, an elderly woman who lives mostly inside her home and her memories and a younger protagonist who, by pure chance, meets the elderly character and becomes strangely attached to her to the point that they start to question the importance of their busy lives and to value not only human relationships, but also the knowledge and wisdom acquired from past experiences of their elderly friends. The questions that arise from the situations presented in the novels and which I intend to develop in this paper are to what extent old age had remained invisible to the younger protagonists and what does the entering of these protagonists into the reality of old age provide to both the younger and older characters. It is also important to note the way in which the spaces where the elderly protagonists live are described and compare them to those of the younger ones. Environment is everything that surrounds us and that has some influence on us either physically or psychologically. In Webster’s dictionary of the English language, the term ‘environment’ is defined as “[t]he aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences, esp. as affecting the existence or development of someone or something” (1996: 477). According to Jeffrey Garland, “‘[e]nvironment’ is a complex term embracing internal and external factors, and incorporating physical, psychological and social features.” (1990: 124). As Kathleen Woodward suggests, in our culture, young and old are not only two differentiated categories with different cultural implications, but they also seem to be part of two clear separate environments. In Doris Lessing’s The Diary of a Good Neighbour, Janna Somers, just about to turn fifty, meets Maudie Fowler, a woman over her nineties who lives on her own in a flat in London and who is remarkable for her strong and stubborn personality. Although Janna is smart, attractive, a member of upper middle-class society and very successful in her professional life as editor of a glossy magazine, she becomes strangely attached to Maudie Fowler to the point that she becomes her friend and carer. Janna senses a special attachment between them the first time they meet in the chemist’s: I saw an old witch. I was staring at this old creature and thought, a witch. (...) She saw me looking at her and thrust at me a prescription and said, “What is this? You get it for me.” Fierce blue eyes, under grey craggy brows, but there was something wonderfully sweet in them.

Invisible Environments: Old Age and Its Spaces