Nearly every named object in the house is described to possess some degree of oldness or decrepitude. His purple splotches will never be senile purpura, because at best, they are a precursor to his eventual death. He will not develop wrinkles on his skin and or grow white hair on his almost shaven head. The contradiction lies within the fact that age and decay are presented with a negative lens, as if it were an ugly, repulsive thing. On multiple occasions, his mother nonchalantly and self-deprecatingly refers to herself with phrases such as “the crazy old thing, the old witch” or “a common, decrepit old woman” (5, 8). The disparaging attitude insinuates that it is not beautiful to be old, to be worn-out; and yet time is the beautiful thing that seems to be escaping him. By his thin frame and tired demeanor, he physically appears to be aging when he is truly not. His appearance is deceiving because he is not as old as he looks, and he may never reach such an age in number. The colors of pink and purple, the indicators of AIDS on his body, have caused him to age prematurely before he even has the chance to do so on his own terms on a normal timeline. While his surroundings are consistently described in an old, decayed manner, he will never reach a comparable point despite his frail and sickly
Nearly every named object in the house is described to possess some degree of oldness or decrepitude. His purple splotches will never be senile purpura, because at best, they are a precursor to his eventual death. He will not develop wrinkles on his skin and or grow white hair on his almost shaven head. The contradiction lies within the fact that age and decay are presented with a negative lens, as if it were an ugly, repulsive thing. On multiple occasions, his mother nonchalantly and self-deprecatingly refers to herself with phrases such as “the crazy old thing, the old witch” or “a common, decrepit old woman” (5, 8). The disparaging attitude insinuates that it is not beautiful to be old, to be worn-out; and yet time is the beautiful thing that seems to be escaping him. By his thin frame and tired demeanor, he physically appears to be aging when he is truly not. His appearance is deceiving because he is not as old as he looks, and he may never reach such an age in number. The colors of pink and purple, the indicators of AIDS on his body, have caused him to age prematurely before he even has the chance to do so on his own terms on a normal timeline. While his surroundings are consistently described in an old, decayed manner, he will never reach a comparable point despite his frail and sickly