Over-time. An approach to old age as a creative power

Abstract

In the Spanish literary tradition, the question about the effects of age and the reflection on the fleeting nature of time occupy prominent places as topics. However, in terms of the story, the condition of old age is not always strictly limited to the old age of a voice. On the contrary, the valences associated with maturity are transformed and acquire specific characteristics at different times in history. In this sense, the purpose of this paper is to reflect on old age as a platform for narrative inquiry about the nuances of a threatening otherness. In this way, if old age is anchored in biological decline, old age will be sustained by an imaginary built by representations on which literature will explore in order to dismantle them. Our hypothesis maintains that the effect of this process of disarticulation is a radical discussion on two fundamental aspects: chronomativity as an arbitrary condition (Solana, 2016) and the capacity of the body as an imposition of a "mandatory bodily integrity" (Moscoso, 2009; McRuer , 2021) revealing, finally, the power of mistime.