Aging and Invisibility

Throughout the entirety of the novel, the author uses Hornclaw’s character as a gateway to her explorations concerning age and invisibility. The author introduces these thematic interests in the opening scene of the novel. When 65-year-old Hornclaw boards the busy Friday evening train, no one pays attention to her or moves to give her a seat. Because “the number and depth of the grooves in her face make her look closer to eighty” and because of the way that “she carries herself and the way she dresses,” the narrator remarks that Hornclaw does not “leave a strong impression on anyone” (12). The same is true, the narrator goes on to explain, of all senior citizens. Like other elderly individuals in her city, the public has “excise[d] [Hornclaw] from their consciousness as if she’s unimportant, recyclable. Or they never even saw her to...