Old age as an experience of freedom: an existential reading of Clarice Lispector and Lygia Fagundes Telles

Abstract

This article offers a literary analysis of the short stories "Feliz Aniversário", by Clarice Lispector, and "A Presença", by Lygia Fagundes Telles, aiming to investigate the perception of old age beyond biological decline. It seeks to denaturalize the simplistic view of aging, exploring it as a social construction and as an experience of freedom and agency. The analysis is grounded in Simone de Beauvoir's existentialist philosophy, particularly in her essay Old Age, which guides the understanding of identity as a constant renegotiation, of responsibility, and of solitude as a space for self-discovery. The research adopts a qualitative methodology of textual analysis, with an interdisciplinary approach bridging philosophy, literature, and gender studies. It investigates how the authors portray old age as a process of reaffirming autonomy, the body as history and agency, and the tension between care and control. It concludes that old age in Brazilian fiction, viewed through an existentialist lens, is far from passivity: it constitutes a stage of agency, ethics, and choices that shape identity.