THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

PLOT
The novel is divided into two parts, entitled "One" and "Two", both of which are
narrated by Tony Webster when he is retired and living alone. The first part begins
in the 1960s with four intellectually arrogant school friends, of whom two feature in
the remainder of the story: Tony, the narrator, and Adrian, the most precociously
intelligent of the four. Towards the end of their school days another boy at the
school hangs himself, apparently after getting a girl pregnant. The four friends
discuss the philosophical difficulty of knowing exactly what happened. Adrian goes
to Cambridge University and Tony to Bristol University. Tony acquires a girlfriend,
Veronica, at whose family home he spends an awkward weekend. Their relationship
fails in some acrimony. In his final year at university Tony receives a letter from
Adrian informing him that he is going out with Veronica. Tony replies to the letter.
Some months later he is told that Adrian has committed suicide, leaving a note
addressed to the coroner saying that the thinking person has a philosophical duty to
examine the nature of their life, and may then choose to renounce it. Tony admires
the reasoning. He briefly recounts the following uneventful forty years of his life
until his sixties. At this point Tony's narration of the second part of the novel
which is twice as long as the first begins, with the arrival of a lawyer's letter
informing him that Veronica's mother has bequeathed him 500 and two
documents. These lead him to re-establish contact with Veronica and after a
number of meetings with her, to re-evaluate the story he has narrated in the first
part.
PART 2
Forty years later, as we learn in Part 2, new memories begin to emerge in Tonys
mind of other episodes with Veronica that he has forgotten for decades. One of
these memories is of Veronica, who never danced, appearing in his room and
dancing with him to 45s played on his record player. He also revisits a memory he
described earlier of witnessing the reversal of the Thames with a group of friends
in the middle of the night. He suddenly recalls that Veronica was there as well, and
that when the rest of the group ran off with torches (flashlights) to watch the
reversal, he stayed behind on a blanket with Veronica. And finally, he recalls new
details of his weekend visit with the Ford family. He remembers that Veronica
walked him to his room on the second night of his visit, leaned him against the door,

kissed him on the mouth, and whispered into his ear, Sleep the sleep of the
wicked.
VERONICA'S MOTHER
Veronicas mother does not have a healthy relationship with her daughter. She is
either jealous of her daughter or resents her daughter and either consciously or
unconsciously wants to hurt her emotionally. Its not all that uncommon for a
mother to resent her daughter or to be overly competitive with her. When a
daughter matures into a woman and has all the advantages of youthful beauty, a
mother cant avoid facing the fact that she herself is aging and her own beauty is on
the decline. While most women would be happy for their daughter to be found
beautiful, others could become subject to extreme jealousy. They could also be
subject to insecurity if they think that their daughter might be stealing all the
affection of their husband. I think Sara, either consciously or unconsciously wants
to sabotage Veronicas relationship and she wants to prove she is still a desirable
woman with the ability to attract a younger man. This explains her strange remark
out of the blue to Tony, "Don't let Veronica get away with too much" and explains
her extra friendliness to Tony. And of course this also explains her affair with
Adrian.
EXPLANATIONS
Written from the vantage point of old age, which, it is hinted, are most likely the
winter years of the life of Tony Webster, Barness first-person narrator, the short,
crisp, precise novel at first fools you into thinking that its a meditation on ageing
and mortality and the treacherous domain of memory. The title itself, a nod to
Frank Kermodes dense critical work, published in 1967, on how fiction attempts to
give form to the flux that is time, is more deceptive than it appears. Three friends
at school allow the newcomer Adrian to become part of their group. Adrian, they
discover, has a sharper mind than theirs and has that quality so utterly rare among
the English, of being serious about serious things, although the core of this serious
new friend seems to be unknowable and unreachable. After school, Tony goes to
university in Bristol and Adrian to Cambridge. At Bristol, Tony has a brief and
relationship although non-relationship would be a more accurate term with
Veronica, who, shortly after their acrimonious breakup, starts going out with Adrian,
a fact Tony only discovers when Adrian writes to him to ask him for permission to do
so. Tony writes him a facetious card to the effect of Be my guest and, later, a more
considered, serious letter. He spends a year travelling in the USA then returns home
to the news of Adrians suicide. From this point onwards Barnes masterfully
compresses the events in Tonys life that are not relevant to this particular story

steady job; marriage to Margaret; birth of daughter, Susie; divorce; retirement to

two pages then moves on to Part Two, where the long shadow of the past with
Veronica and Adrian falls over Tonys life again.
A bequest of 500 and some documents from the recently-deceased Sarah Ford,
Veronicas mother, whom Tony had met only once, on a weekend visit to Veronicas
family in the brief period they were seeing each other in university, reawakens the
past and Tonys curiosity, not least because the document, which Tony discovers
from the solicitor is Adrians diary, has been withheld by Veronica. He doggedly
pursues Veronica, whom he hasnt seen since they split up, into giving them to him.
The tension is ratcheted up. Why does Veronica give him only one page of Adrians
diary? The page contains some pretty dodgy cod-philosophising, arranged like the
propositions of a tract on logic to fool readers into thinking that theyre getting
Wittgenstein redux. A later elucidation of the symbols used in the page serves only
to highlight, unintentionally, the "anticlimax" involved in applying analytical
philosophy to the events of a private life but more on this later.
Then there is Veronica, already an intensely annoying creature (and surely the
character whose actions are the least credible), who does not help her cause, nor
Tonys, by repeatedly stating that he doesnt get things, that he never did. To
substantiate this, she gives him a copy of the serious letter he wrote to Adrian and
Veronica shortly after finding out that they were going out. The letter, of which
Tony has no memory, comes as a jet of cold water between his eyes. It is cruel and
petty, and Tony, thinking that this is what drove Adrian over the edge, is afflicted
by severe remorse. Another round of determined pursual of the remarkably
unyielding Veronica follows, this time to apologise and try to make amends. Nested
disclosures follow and Im going to reveal them because the final twist in the book is
the weakest and its great defect. A laconic Veronica, refusing to offer Tony any
explanations before, during or afterwards, takes Tony to see a group of what he
assumes are care-in-the-community people people with severe learning
difficulties on a pub outing. One of them, a goofy-looking man of forty but with
the mental age of a child, seems especially pleased to see Veronica and calls her
Mary. Tonys persistent questions about who they are, why Veronica has brought
him to watch them from her parked car, why the man called her Mary, what their
condition is, are all met with steely silence and, finally, ejection from the car.
Tony, determined to find out the truth, follows the group on their next expedition to
the pub and talks to their carer. Understanding finally dawns on him: the man who
called Veronica Mary is Adrian and Veronicas son. This causes him much anguish
as one of the things he had written in that savage letter was, Part of me hopes you
have a child, because Im a great believer in times revenge. But revenge must be on
the right people, i.e. you two. So I dont wish you that. It would be unjust to inflict
on some innocent foetus the prospect of discovering that it was the fruit of your

loins, if youll excuse the poeticism. Be careful of what you wish for, they say;
seeing his imprecation embodied like this curdles something in Tony. He writes a
heartfelt letter of apology to Veronica again only to be told, yet again, that he still
doesnt get it. So the earlier twist wasnt the last one, theres a final turn still to
come. In a chance encounter at the same pub some months later, Tony has
another conversation with a carer who is minding the same group. It emerges that
the disabled man is not Veronicas son but Adrians son with her mother, Sarah.
Like pieces in a giant puzzle, everything begins to fall into place for Tony: the goofy
mans condition; the cryptic remarks of Veronica and her taciturnity; Adrians
suicide; that page from his diary; Sarah Ford's bequest to Tony, which Veronica
had called blood money.
ANALYSIS
Main Characters
The number of characters are not many in this complex novel but the
relationship of the characters are quit complicated in the way they behave in the
novel.
Tony Webster
Tony is the narrator of the novel. He 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. In
second part of the novel he re-evaluates the first part of his novel. When he
receives some amount and document from his ex-girl friends mother, he reestablished contact with Veronica and tries to solve the puzzling questions. After
meeting Veronica Tony evaluates his first narrated story. He 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
truely happened. Tonys narration can be called unreliable.
Veronica Ford
She is spiky and enigmatic ex-girlfriend of Tony. Her character is very
complicated. Her behaviour in her own house seemed mysterious. Later on she
dated with Adrian who was Tony's 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.
Adrian Finn

He was the brightest student. He was an intellectual man. He evaluated

things philosophically. He dated with his best friends ex-girlfriend Veronica. His
diary was in possession of Sarah Ford Veronicas mother. It is possible that Tonys
letter inspired him to meet Sarah so in his last days, as Sarah wrote, he was very
happy. There is possibility of his relationship with Sarah as Jr Adrian looked like
senior one and Jr Adrian was believed to be Sarahs brother. Adrian did suicide for
which he gave philosophical reason.
Now. After seeing the main characters and their unsolved
mysteries lets think about the main themes in the novel. The novel has themes like
weakness of Memory Aging, suicide, Eros Thanatos, class conflict.
Weakness of Memory and Ageing
In youth it is difficult to recall all the events of childhood same way old age is
the age when memory gets faded. Weak or lighter. A person doesnt remember all
the events in detail.
Why did Veronicas mother have Adrians diary? Why did she want Tony
and no one else to have it? Tony finds mining his memory to find answers
surrounding Adrians suicide. His search literally reveals the weakness of memory
as corroboration.
I dont envy Adrian his death, but envy him the clarity of his life, Tony
muses in old age.
When you are in your twenties you can remember your short life in its
entirety. Later, memory becomes a thing of shreds and patches.
Barnes provides only physical details. Hard facts couldnt come out from
his mind. Adrian reveal memory to be a fractious and fictious. Tony says later in life.
All my conclusions are reversible.
One can not rely on the Past memories as it comes in fragments. The
narrator has always made that same reasonable assumption, but act of revisiting his
past in later life challenges his care beliefs about causation, responsibility and the
very chain of events that make up his sense of self.
We talk about our memories,
but should perhaps talk more about our forgetting,
even if that is a more difficult
or logically impossible-feat.
Barnes is brutally incisive on the diminishment of age: now that the sense of his
own ending is coming into focus, Tony apprehends that the purpose of life is to
reconcile us to its eventual loss, that he has already experienced the first death:
that of the possibility of change.
Like everyone, Tony has carried his youth inside him into adulthood,
fixed in vivid memory. The advocates letter informing him that, 40 years on, he has
been left Adrians diary in a will, that sets Tony to examining what he thinks his life

has been. With its various patterns and repetitions, scrutinising its own workings
from every possible angle, the novella becomes a highly wrought meditation on
ageing, memory and regret. It seems as if Barnes
Wants to tell all stories, in all their contrariness, contradiction and
irresolvability.
Memory that is individual, accounts for who we are and what we have
become. Early memory is particularly valuable, though it can be misconstrued. Its
influence can persist throughout adult life, though what is cause and what effect
may be difficult to judge. In The Sense of an ending, Julian Barnes tracks the origin
of one particular memory through a long and apparently uneventful life towards an
explanation that leaves traces of unease.
Suicide
Man, who is an intellectual person thinks of suicide due to his own philosophical
thinking. We find many famous people all over the world end their life in suicide. In
this novel a young boy called Robson commits suicide in the school. After few
years Adrian kills himself. The reason of Adrians death is not known. Adrians
death lead the narrator to mine his past. But Tonys memory, the way it is revealed
doesnt solve the mystery. There are many clues that helps us to conclude but
doesnt lead to on conclusion. Many questions are unanswered behind the second
suicide whereas the first suicide was committed after making a girl pregnant.
Adrian Was an intellectual genius who went to one of the best universities. He dated
his friends ex-girl friend Veronica but his diary was with her mother and the
documents sent by Sarah to Tony said that he was very happy in his last days. Also
Jr. Adrian, a mentally retarded person, who resembled Adrians appearance was
taken care by Veronica. Jr. Adrian was her brother. Thus, the clues lead us to think
about Adrian-Sarah relationship which might be one of the reasons of Adrians
suicide.
Eros and Thanatos
Eros is erotic love and Thanatos is death. Freud gave the theory that
the duality of human nature emerged from two basic instincts- Eros and Thanatos.
Freud saw an instinct for life, love and sexuality in Eros. In Thanatos, he saw the
instinct of death and aggression. The first leads to the reproduction of the species
and the other toward its own destruction. The theme of Eros and Thanatos ran
simultaneously in the case of Robinson and Adrian. Here, it should be kept in mind
that Thanatos also means death as a personification or as a philosophical notion.
Class Conflict

Adrian was smarter than Tony. Veronica was an awkward girl. She was a
misfit in her family. She was self-conscious to dance in public. She felt humiliated.
Tony once spent a weekend at Veronicas family home. At the time he had felt
uncomfortable, Socially inferior, and he was hardly surprised when the enigmatic
Veronica took up with more prestigious Adrian. She was class conscious. She
choose the better option. This way class conflict is also one of the themes in The
Sense of an Ending.
I have discussed some of the main themes of this novel. Barnes prose is elegant,
witty and playful. He can be associated with the post-modern writers. He chose an
unreliable narrator. He wrote with self-conscious linguistic style, an intertextual
blending of different narrative forms which serve to foreground the process of
literary creation, the gap between experience and language, and the subjectivity of
truth and reality. Barnes fiction is also based on psychological realism and his
themes are serious, poignant and heart-felt. He frequently addresses the nature of
love, particularly its dark side, exploring humankinds capacity for jealousy,
obsession and infidelity, alongside the perennial quest for authentic love.
Barnes does not come out and tie everything together. The reader is left to
go back through the events and dialogues in order to resolve the mysteries.
Regarding passages and many will went to completely reread the novel. Any way the
novel has an outstanding qualities that make us ponder.