Sense of an ending by julian barnes

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, MKBU.

Name: Nimesh DaveSem :4

Paper :13- The New LiteratureTopic: "History is....inadequacy of

documentation"- explain with illustration from Tony' s memory.

Academic year- 2015-16

Introduction - "Sense of an Ending" by

Julian Barnes- 2011- Man Booker Prize - Main characters - Tony

Webster, Veronica Ford, Adrian Finn, Sarah Ford

Novel about person's memory of youthful days

(revisiting & recreating past)

“The Sense of an Ending"

Tony Webster - NarratorRecalling... - school days -History classDiscussion on various defintions of History.

Robson's suicide as an example

So, we've two words….(1) Imperfect Memory:- -(example of freedom fighters) (2) Inadequate Documents:- -(Jesus kissed. Where?- missing in

documents)

The gist of matter is that How far can we rely on memory??

Because...-Whatever incidents are narrated in part 1, that

same incidents are narrated again with 'DOCUMENTS' & this is quite opposite to what we know from the first part.

Tony's Letter

In 1st part Tony has just narrated through memory that he had written letter to Adrian and Veronica.

But, in second part this letter comes as a shock, even to Tony that he had written such letter.

it was ( written proof- Document- letter- in his own handwriting- which even he cant deny)

Tony’s Letter

So what?????

This leads us to doubt the earlier memory narrative.( Because he didn't mention ugliness of his own letter)

*Still now, we were thinking that Veronica had 'Damaged' Tony, But it was Tony who had cause Damage to Veronica & Adrian& then even he was living life as if nothing happen.

History as unreliable...

Conclusion

History is also like this.Individual' s personal history may be

different than the reality.one cant trust memory.enough documents are necessary.