Old age as a choice and as a necessity two interpretative repertoires

This article applies the method of discourse analysis to look at how older people talk about age and getting old. The data come from biographical interviews with people aged 90 years or over. The picture that emerges from these interviewees is one of ambivalence: old age is constructed through two contrasting repertoires that are described as the choice repertoire and the necessity repertoire. Talk about old age as a necessity produces it as a self-evident fact that the essence of old age is deterioration. Talk about old age as a choice is used to undermine the necessity repertoire and to argue for various and more positive definitions of old age among which one can make a choice. It is important to note that the contrast is not between cultural views and individual experience, but the ambivalence is rooted in people's minds. Both repertoires are reasonable and justifiable, which turns old age into a dilemma. Our thinking about old age is dilemmatic by nature