英语名篇名段背诵精华39_美文_双语阅读-查字典英语网

英语名篇名段背诵精华39

But what are an individual’s chances for a “good old age in America, with satisfying final years and a dignified death ?Unfortunately , none too good. For many elderly Americans old age is a tragedy, a period of quiet despair, deprivation , desolation and muted rage. This can be a consequence of the kind of life a person has led in younger years and the problems in his or her relationships with others. There are also inevitable personal and physical losses to be sustained, some of which can become overwhelming and unbearable. All of this is the individual factor, the existential element. But old age is frequently a tragedy even when the early years have been fulfilling and people seemingly have everything going for them. Herein lies what I consider to be the genuine tragedy of old age in America—we have shaped a society which is extremely harsh to live in when one is old. The tragedy of old age is not the fact that each of us must grow old and die but that the process of doing so has been made unnecessarily and at times excruciatingly painful, humiliating, debilitating and isolating through insensitivity, ignorance and poverty. The potentials for satisfactions and even triumphs in late life are real and vastly under explored. For the most part the elderly struggle to exist in an inhospitable world.