"I'm too old to keep a dog," she says to the dogcatcher as he is leaving with a brown fice that showed up on her doorstep. "Besides, I'm slowing down," she says to her son during lunch. The stereotypes of the elderly are influencing Mattie's life. She is telling herself not to do things because of her age whether or not she is physically able to do them, simply because people associate age with inability and dependence upon others. Her family and friends

Mattie has grown up with the same expectations of elderly people as everyone else, however, she chooses not to live her life based on these expectations, but rather on how her feelings lead her. At the beginning of the novel, she is unsure about what direction she wants to take in life. She turns down the dog, and says that she needs to slow down, but at the end she makes a realization about the person that she wishes to be. She makes the comment at the beginning about how she is "too old" to keep a dog, yet at the end, she asks whether or not he is still in the pound. She even is laughing about falling through the bottom of the rocking chair even though she was worried about injuring herself at the time it happened. And she sends her children through a loop when she decides to raise the juvenile, Wesley, in her home.

Although she is beginning to display some signs of aging and her family tries desperately to have her slow her life down, Mattie Rigsbee has a s

Some common words found in the essay are:
Turnage Mattie's, Egypt Mattie, Mattie Rigsbee, Besides I'm, Robert Mattie's, Wesley Benfield, Clyde Edgerton's, Robert Mattie, family friends, becoming stereotypical elder, signs aging family, display signs aging, signs aging, aging family, display signs, elder decision, stereotypical elder decision, stereotypical elder, mattie rigsbee, juvenile wesley, becoming stereotypical,
Approximate Word count = 652
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)