Clarification and application of Erik Erikson's eighth stage of man.

Erik Erikson used the film character of Dr. Borg from Wild Strawberries to flesh out his life cycle conception of ego integrity versus despair in old age. The present application of Erikson is to three women: Augusta Turnley (fiction), Florida Scott-Maxwell, and Arie Carpenter--three distinctly different lifestyles and educational backgrounds. Both the dialectical struggle contained in Erikson's model of old age and the specific concepts of ego integrity, despair and wisdom are made concrete in this theoretical exploration.