Aging

The novel is interested in the way that social pressures negatively affect the way in which women perceive themselves as they age. Maude lives her entire life alone until she retires from her flower shop and realizes that she wants to experience partnership with someone. She meets Richard, a widower, at a speed-dating event for seniors, and the two quickly fall in love. Maude never understands why Richard likes her because she thinks of herself as ugly. The very first lines of the novel showcase the narrator’s description of Maude’s physical experience: “It was Maude’s wedding day, and she looked awful in her dress. It bunched and sagged and pillowed and bulged. It washed her out while somehow also accentuating what was, in Maude’s mind, her worst feature—her face” (1). This is not objective description from the narrator, but free indirect discourse...