The Sense of an Ending

Presented by
Poojaba Jadeja
Drashti Mehta
Gayatri Goswami
Bharat Bhammar
Hitesh Paramar

Key Facts

FULL TITLE The Sense of an Ending

AUTHOR Julian Barnes
TYPE OF WORK Novel
GENRE Literary fiction, Psychological
Thriller, Memory novel
LANGUAGE English
TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN 1960s
suburban London, England, Present
DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION August 4,
2011
PUBLISHER Jonathan Cape (UK) Knopf
(US)
NARRATOR Tony Webster

 SETTING (PLACE) England

PROTAGONIST .Tony Webster
MAJOR CONFLICT Websters divorce with Veronica
and the latters remarriage with his friend, search for
the reason of Adrians Suicide
RISING ACTION . Three school friends, one of whom is
Tony Webster is joined by a fourth, Adrian Finn, much
cleverer than other group members
CLIMAX . Tony learns that Adrian commits suicide
FALLING ACTION Webster re-established contact
with Veronica to re-evaluate the past
THEMES Meditation on ageing, Class Conflict,
Inconsistencies between Shared Histories / memories,
Conflict between Eros and Thanatos- sex and death
MOTIFS Repetition, Regret, Suicide, Damage, Blood
Money
SYMBOLS Diary, Chips, Fruit Cake

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Characters of the Sense

of an Ending
-Gayatri
Goswami

Tony Webster
Tony is the narrator of the novel.
Tony is retired arts administrator and lives

alone

Tony is at the centre of the novel around whom the other

characters are revealed.
Tonys life is stormed with many memories of his past 40
years.
Tony attended school in the 1960s, and many of his memories
centre on him and his friends grappling with the new sexual
freedoms.
In second part of the novel he re-evaluates the first part of his
novel.

 Tony Webster receives some amount and document from his

ex-girl friends mother, he re-established contact with
Veronica and tries to solve the puzzling questions.
After meeting Veronica Ford and Tony evaluates his first
narrated story.
Tony makes some conscious observations about class, sex,
repression and intellectuality.
Tony, when narrated, had a daughter and grand-children.
One cannot completely trust his memory because at the age
of sixty all events of past cannot be recalled as what truly
happened.
Tonys Webster in the novel narration can be called
unreliable.

 Tony is a type member of the British middmiddle class ,A baby beamer , educated at a
solid ,undistinguished school , than Bristol for
university rather than Oxbridge , followed by a
steady career in a non creative corner of the
arts
Tony concedes that part one is made up of his
imperfect shabby memories which even as he
writes he realizes are inaccurate.
Hes had career and a single marriage, a calm
divorce

 Tony

certainly never tried to hurt anybody

Tony memory though , is imperfect

Tony doesn't get much closer to understanding than the rule
he applies to love in old age once bitten ,twice bitten
Though the narration of the sense of an ending , its
protagonist Tony Webster teaches himself set of 1 lessons
about the erratic itineraries
Tony had a reasonably good relationship with veronica
Tony still doesnt understand veronica
Tony Webster , that consolation comes formed the sense of
life lived it not thrillingly , than at least without blame .

Veronica Mary Elizabeth

Ford
She is spiky and enigmatic ex-girlfriend of
Tony. Her character is very complicated.
Her behavior in her own house seemed
mysterious. Later on she dated with Adrian
who was Tonys intelligent friend.
In the second part Tony tried hard to get
some clues from Veronica about Adrians
diary in possession of Sarah Ford.

 She knew everything but did not revel

anything. One can praise her unselfish act
of taking care of mentally retarded Jr.
Adrian.
Her father was civil servant .
About the character of Veronica five foot
two with rounded , muscular calves, midbrown hair to her shoulder ,blue-grey eyes
behind blue-framed spectacles and quick at
without smile .

 Veronica who spent her younger life competing with her

motherSarah who has a unhealthy jealousy toward her daughter
had made Veronica a shy , complex person which Tony saw as
paranoid and 'bitchy'.

veronica Mother' would not be happy with Veronica closeness

with Tony Webster .

Veronicas mother Sara Ford does not have a healthy relation

with her daughter

veronicas family like that , alcoholic father ,lustful mother , a

complex sister and a brother who doesnt call his mother ,mother

Veronica wasnt very different from other

Tony original relationship with veronica

Tony still doesnt understand veronica

Adrian Finn

Adrian is describe to be a quite an intelligent

man and always thinking ahead of him

Adrian coming from a dysfunctional family ,

where his mother left his father clearly have
some 'mummy issues' and as we read in the part
1 is a hyper sensitive man

Even though he was really happy with Sarah,

creating another life due to his weakness and lust
made him guilty and hesaw the responsibilities
ahead him due to his mistake.

Adrian was a little more serious than the others .

 Adrian Finn evaluated things philophically.

He is a tall shy boy
He dated with his best friends ex-girlfriend Veronica.
Who initially kept his eyes down and his mind to
himself
This was long before the term single-parent family
,come into use ; back than it was a broken home and
Adrian was the only person we knew who come from
one
certainly more intelligent but they swore to stay
friends forever

 Adrian life took at urn into tragedy

Veronica and Adrian were seriously in love
but Sarah managed to seduce Adrian
and Adrian enjoyed his relationship with
Sarah even though he also still loved
Veronica
Adrian allowed himself to be absorbed into
out group without acknowledging that it was
something he sought
His diary was in possession of Sarah Ford
Veronicas mother.

Sarah Ford

Sarah ford the mother of Veronica ford .

Indirectly lead Adrian to have a more meanful or more

important relationshipwith Sara which lead to the formation of
a baby.

Sara who has a unhealthy relationship with Veronica.

Sarah Ford jealousy of her daughter relationship with Tony

Webster

Sarah Ford to have a more manful , passionate relationship

with Adrian that lead to the formation of a another life , a baby.

When Sarah Ford died that time she gave 500 pounds to Tony
s in her will and gave her personal dairy

Margret

Margret Tonys Webster ex-wife

Susie

Tony Webster and Margrets daughter

Eleanor Marriott
Eleanor Marriott is solicitor

T . J. Gunnell
In the novel T .J . Gunnell was lawyer

Old Joe Hunt

Old Joe Hunt is History teacher

Phil Dixon
Phil Diction English teacher

Colin and Alex

school friends of Tony and Adrians

Jack
is

Jac
Veronica k
Brother

The Sense of
an Ending
Plot
Drashti
Mehta

The Sense of an Ending by

Julian Barnes an English
novelist won 2011 Man Booker
prize

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re-established
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a number of
meetings with her,
to re-evaluate the
story he has

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Title of The Sense of an Ending

-Bharat
Bhammar

About novel
The stories we tell about ourselves serve as consolatory
structure, falsifying origins and ends to the grant order
and meaning to the which has none
-Frank Kermode

Ambiguity of Title
Title invites multiple interpretations
Purposeful ambiguity
Typical of Barnes lucid but multi-layered
Corrosive relationship with veronica

Plot

Fine Book
Skillfully plotted
Boldly conceived
Questions of ageing and memory
Realistic condition

Borrowed Title
Frank Kermodes work is also entitled as
Studies in the theory in the fiction. (1967)
No Beginning and no End

THEMES
-Poojaba Jadeja

Imperfection of MEMORY

Narration
Tonys memory
Fragmentation
Search for sense
Unreliable narration

Memory Vs History
Unreliability of history
History is that certainty
produced at the point where
the imperfections of memory
meet the inadequacies of
documentation.

Eros and Thanatos

Sex and death

Robsons suicide
Adrians relationship
Adrians suicide
Thanatos weans again

Existentialism

Adrians character
Camus philosophy
Concept of memory
Suicide
Existentialism Vs Eros
and Thanatos

Minor Themes

Class conflict
Meditation and ageing
Memory and despair
Mystery and search for
solution/reasons
Oedipus complex
Personal past

Q
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Quotes on Memory
Well, in one sense, I cant know what it is that I dont
know. Thats philosophically Self-evident.
-By
Adrian Finn
What you end up remembering isnt always the same as
what you have witnessed. - Tony Webster
How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we
adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes
on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to
remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we
have told about our life. Told to others, butmainlyto
ourselves.
By Tony Webster (narrator)
We live with such easy assumptions, dont we? For
instance, that memory equals events plus time. But its all
much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what
we thought wed forgotten?

History, Memory Vs History

But of course, my desire to ascribe responsibility might be more a
reflection of my own cast of mind than a fair analysis of what happened.
Thats one of the central problems of history, isnt it, sir? The question of
subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know
the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being
put in front of us.
History isnt the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt;
I know that now. Its more the memories of the survivors, most of whom
are neither victorious nor defeated.
The history that happens underneath our noses ought to be the clearest,
and yet its the most deliquescent. We live in time, it bounds us and
defines us, and time is supposed to measure history, isnt it? But if we
cant understand time, cant grasp its mysteries of pace and progress,
what chance do we have with historyeven our own small, personal,
largely undocumented piece of it?
We live with such easy assumptions, dont we? For instance, that memory
equals events plus time. But its all much odder than this. Who was it said
that memory is what we thought wed forgotten? And it ought to be
obvious to us that time doesnt act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But
its not convenientits not usefulto believe this; it doesnt help us get
on with our lives; so we ignore it.

Existentialist ideas in the novel

Time
Another detail I remember: the three of us, as a
symbol of our bond, used to wear our watches with the
face on the inside of the wrist. It was an affectation, of
course, but perhaps something more. It made time feel
like a personal, even a secret, thing. Narrator
How often do we tell our own life story? How often do
we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life
goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our
account, to remind us that our life is not our life,
merely the story we have told about our life. Told to
others, butmainlyto ourselves.
this may be one of the differences between youth
and age: when we are young, we invent different
futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent
different pasts for others.

Symbols and Motifs in

The Sense of an Ending
-Hitesh
Parmar

Symbols
A mark or character used as a conventional
representation of an object, function, or process,
e.g. the letter or letters standing for a chemical
element or a character in musical notation.
A thing that represents or stands for something
else, especially a material object representing
something abstract.

Symbols in Sense of an Ending

Diary
Tony Webster narrator.
Adrian Finn Wrote Diary.
Story is in Flashback memory.
It symbolizes documentation.

Chips
It is a symbol in the story.
This symbol recurrently appears
in the
last few pages.

Fruitcake
It was a "slightly odd thing", he cautiously
admits, to pretend to his ex-wife when they
first met
that Veronica had never
existed (and then later give such a one sided account of her that she's known
within their marriage as "The Fruitcake")..
Ref.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/
26/sense-ending-julian-barnes-review1

Motifs
A recurring element that creates
recognizable patterns in folklore and
folk-art traditions.
A repeated theme or pattern.

Motifs in The Sense of an

Ending

Suicide

Regret
I dont envy Adrian his death,
but I
envy him the clarity of his life.
Tony felt regret many time.

Repetition

Thank
you

Bibliography
Wikipedia contributors."The Sense of an Ending."Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 3 Oct. 2014. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sense_of_an_Ending
Information of the novel from Wikipedia
http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/15657664-the-sense-of-an-ending
Quotes from the texts are explained.
http://andrewblackman.net/2012/05/the-sense-of-an-ending-explained/
Ending of the novel is explained by Andrew Blackman
http://www.julianbarnes.com/bib/senseofanending.html
Information about Interview with Julian Barnes and book summary.
http://www.amazon.in/The-Sense-Ending-Julian-Barnes-ebook/dp/B005E87G
LY
Different reviews from magazines and News Papers.
http://litlove.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/the-nonsense-of-an-ending/
Information about this booker prize winning novella and basic question is
about, What happened there?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/books/review/the-sense-of-an-endingby-julian-barnes-book-review.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
About this book by Julian Barnes and English mans emotion, and about his
style.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-clothier/book-review-the-sense-of-_b
_3017437.html
This is about the book and the role of Memory.