Funny Old Dears: The Treatment of Age as Farce in Memento Mori, Ending Up, and The Old Boys

BAKEA 9 - XI. BATI KÜLTÜRÜ VE EDEBİYATLARI ARAŞTIRMALARI SEMPOZYUMU, Konya, Türkiye, 15 - 17 Eylül 2025, ss.57, (Özet Bildiri)

Having negative connotations, ageing is feared, denied, and ridiculed in Western societies. Due

to the physical and mental problems that might occur in later life, aged people are believed to

be dysfunctional, inutile, and absurd, which paves the way for marginalisation of the aged.

However, the main cause of this marginalisation is not the natural entropy of human life, but

the unfavourable meaning of ageing that is attributed by society and culture. Thus, ageing is a

sociocultural construct rather than being a biological process. As cultural critic Margaret

Morganroth Gullette indicates, ageing is seen as decline and it is a cultural narrative which

frames the perspectives of human beings. Literature, having narration at its core while mirroring

society and culture, provides a fruitful field for studying age. Therefore, understanding the

literary treatments of old age may help de-form and perhaps reform the cultural codes on old

age. Farce comes to the fore as a literary attitude towards ageing, which not only reveals but

also contributes to the negative understanding of old age. In the novels Memento Mori (1959),

The Old Boys (1964), and Ending Up (1974), old age is fictionalised as a ridiculous phase of

human life with grotesquely deteriorated old bodies, irrational behaviours, disabilities, and

superfluous wishes of old characters. Subsequently, this study aims to analyse how farce is

employed to otherise old age in these novels by focusing on the social positioning of the older

characters, their generational and intergenerational relationships, and the psychological effects

of such treatments on them.