The desire of elderly women in globalized age: Khun Yai Sai Diew and www.grandma.com

Abstract

This article aims to study elderly women characters in order to analyse their desire, social status, myths, social standard and expectation in Khun-Yai-Sai-Diew and www.grandma.com. Developmental Psychology is used for explaining elderly women's characteristics and defining their mental and emotional problems under the term of globalized age. This study reveals that elderly women's desire is more complicated and they also have conflict between their own desire and social expectation. From both novels, elderly women characters can be classified into 3 types: first, those who wanted to escape social norms(but they failed), second, those who could escape but finally came back into social norms and the last, those who broke social norms definitely and were punished by the society

In conclusion, this study reveals that Thai society has still accepted the stereotyped elderly women. The stereotype of ideal elderly women is strong while the capitalism which is the part of globalization forces them to be modern and active. Elderly women have to depend on materialism and modernization because the stereotyped elderly women are considered not to be suitable for modern society. However, the rebellious , modern and active elderly women characters couldn't be accepted and were rejected from the society. This study reflects that Thai society accepts only the stereotyped elderly women, no matter how the society has been changed.