Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews February 15, 2023 February 8, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
The idea that old age is a pitiless march towards the grave is undercut by the ways in which the everyman, in his old age, is behaving. With the forced cheerfulness and lack of honesty displayed in these conversations, old age could be viewed instead as an advertising campaign. Just like in advertisements, the mundane, anguished truth is concealed or overwritten by happy images, references to the past, and hope for the future to “sell” the idea that fulfilment is possible. Sometimes positivity comes from the sufferer, sometimes from a well-wisher. In earlier sections, such as 21-24, we saw the everyman attempting to make the best of his life through reliance on nostalgia and self-deception regarding his seductive powers. Distraction, via painting and dreams of sexual prowess, paper over the sad reality of actual day-to-day experience. The reality, of gradual weakening and loneliness, is enhanced by a more palatable fiction of moving to a new location, seducing a young woman, or exploring new artistic pursuits. Ezra, ad man to the end, sells this image to the everyman by cheerfully telling of his final creatively-rich exploits.
There are other, more charitable ways of looking at the lies the everyman tells himself and tells and hears from others. We can frame these behaviors, from sharing nostalgic moments to concealing doubts over whether a person can ever recover, as either “magical thinking” or simple human kindness. Magical thinking, defined by Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking, is a way of coping with grief by ignoring concrete reality in favor of the possibility of impossible things happening. For example, the persistent idea that a dead loved one will suddenly walk in the door alive and well. In this view, those suffering find ways to believe that things will improve or are improving, in the face of evidence to the contrary. Alternatively, lies are a collective social good, used to spare feelings and allow privacy for an inconsolable grief. It is notable that the everyman only really lashes out at the lies in his conversations afterwards to himself, when he is tired and upset. While speaking to others about his medical problems he often maintains a calm and warm demeanor, which suggests he too does not want to break through the superficial veneer that holds everything up.
Once again afflicted by ill health, and suffering more than ever in his loneliness, the everyman’s stoicism breaks down. Illness has become routine, and he does not even tell Nancy about the upcoming second carotid operation, which will be the one which ends his life. The everyman, realizing he has irrationally cut the innocent Howie out of his life, and that his own foolishness is the cause of his own loneliness, physically beats himself in the chest. He is symbolically beating the organ which failed him both medically and spiritually. This is the heart which keeps threatening to stop beating and the heart which does not allow him to keep steadfast in brotherly or romantic love. When his efforts to make amends fail because Howie is travelling, the everyman feels he has no one to rely on and that nothing stands between him and the grave. From this point on, denial and sadness give way, slowly, to acceptance.
Please wait while we process your payment