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European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 03
March 2019
Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 1005
Looking Through History via Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending
Chinar
M.A. in English (UGC NET)
Email- vvksahu26@gmail.com
M.N- 1025, SEC- 16-17, Hisar
ABSTRACT:
In the post- Derridian era, where the supremacy of structures and institutions is being
shattered, historicism too is viewed with sceptism and is discredited. Julain Barnes’, The Sense
of an Ending offers a critique to the absolutist notion that history is the true picture of past.
Instead of ‘history’, there are ‘histories’. Rather than providing the reader a linear structured
narrative, Barnes plays with the idea how memory can deceive us just like the classical history
of events do. The text at hand is a post modern end eavour which demands the active
participation of the reader just like the project of new historicism that wish to expose the
“realistic effect” of history, which is nothing more than an illusion. We choose to form our own
history, we believe in our own versions of truth, highly editing and deleting events as per our
own conveniences. We tend to overlook certain details that does not suit our chosen narrative
and also give more importance and weight age to the events that we find convenient and that
supports our “invented history” of self or the other. Different notions of time, space, memory
and history is touched upon in the novel in order to expose the dubious and not so credible
account of history. In the course of time we subconsciously choose to forget the events that
might humiliate us or might fill us with the sense of shame and guilt. If these memories cannot
be presently deleted or removed, our mind tries to mould the reality in such a way to make it
less disturbing. Same is the case with history. We tend to ignore that might not serve the
national political or social or hegemonic purposes.
KEY WORDS:
New historicism, phenomenological approach, ‘The Sense of an Ending’, postmodernism,
poststructurism, memories, the sense of the past, subjective versus objective history, history
versus histories.
Page 2 of 10
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 03
March 2019
Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 1006
We live in a postmodern era where boundaries between different disciplines are
blurring each day. We have now started looking at things from a holistic perspective, looking at
them as a whole rather than from different lenses. This has resulted in widening the gamut of
literature as well, along with other disciplines. It has rendered literature a multidisciplinary as
well as a transdiciplinary discourse. Multidisciplinary as the clear cut demarcation and
compartmentalization is highly criticized and in order to understand an event or a process, an
approach is needed that would cross the strict division of different discourses. Since literature
deals with more than one aspect of human lives and moves across discipline, it has acquired a
transdisciplinary nature, whereby human life and behavior is studied as a whole.
With the advent of new historicism, the boundary between a literary and a non-literary
text has started disappearing so much so that now even historical work can be seen as a text.
Post-Derrida, the structures that were earlier seen as relief were put under inspection and were
challenged. The grand narrative of history too was punctured by introducing counter history
and anecdotes. History therefore, loses its credibility as it is now accepted that history cannot
be absolute.
Earlier history was seen as an objective account of events that had already taken place.
The account was often regarded as authentic and seen as the ultimate truth. However, one
must not forget that history too is subjected to the authorial interpretation of an event. Roland
Barthes too resisted the notion of ‘history writes itself’. In his essay, “The discourse of History”,
Barthes uses the term “realistic effect” to challenge the claims of history to truth or realism.
The presence of the author is inevitable and hence, to say that historical texts represent
absolute truth would be misleading. History is not past itself but rather a record of past
occurrences in a chronological sequence which too amounts to narration. In other words, just
like literary texts, history is a linguistic construct. Whenever a historical account is written, one
must note that is equally vulnerable as there are different external forces that governs its
writing. The historicist cannot be completed unbiased. Every man has certain affliation to
different doctrines and agencies of power and therefore, any account is not free from the
writer’s whims and fancies.
Proximity between history and literature is therefore established and there is a clear
overlapping of the two intellectual spaces. In this sense, history is very much like a literary text
where some events are altered and manufactured too. This makes history writing a creative
field, whereby a writer chooses which facts and events are to be projected while ignoring
others and in this respect, altering the real event. Writing, be it fiction writing or the history
writing, is very similar and depends heavily on the creative faculty of the writer. Personal
history too is very similar and memory plays an important role in this aspect. We choose to
suppress certain facts that we find disturbing, remembering things according to our
Page 3 of 10
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 07 Issue 03
March 2019
Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 1007
conveniences. Similar is true with history writing as well. There is a parallel between writing
national and international history and personal history of an individual.
Julian Barnes’, The Sense of an Ending, explores similar relation and shows how both
memory and history cannot be viewed as an authentic account of events. Memory is not an
innocent medium and hence cannot be trusted. It is through memory that one tries to
construct stories (the personal or the collective history). Memory cannot be seen as a reliable
source. There are number of complexities involved that must be given due consideration. The
very beginning of the novel talks about such dilemma: “I remember, in no particular order: - a
shiny inner wrist; - steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it; -
gouts of sperm circling a plughole’ before being sluiced down the full length of a tall house;- a
river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wish lit by half a dozen chasing torch beams;
- another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the
surface;- bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door.
The last isn’t something that I actually saw, but what you end up remembering
isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.” ( Barnes 3) The novel is a psychological
thriller and the whole story revolves around the protagonist Tony Webster, his friendship with
Adrian Finn and his first serious relation with Veronica. The reader is taken down the memory
lane of Tony Webster, whereby different events starting from the narrator’s childhood to the
present state of affairs, are presented to the reader. Tony Webster is forced to reflect back to
his past when he is notified by a solicitor that he will receive a mysterious inheritance of five
hundred ponds and Adrian’s diary as a part of Veronica’s mother, Mrs. Sarah Ford’s will. He
ventures to seek answers to various events that had happened in his life- his troubled relation
with Veronica and the unexpected suicide of Adrian. Webster however, notes, “I need to return
briefly to a few incidents that have grown into anecdotes, to some approximate memories
which time has deformed into certainty. If I can’t be sure of the actual events any more, I can at
least be true to the impressions those facts left. That’s the best I can manage.” (Barnes 4) . It is
through the impressions that he has in his mind that he revisits his past. However, he himself
says that these impressions cannot be trusted and is subject to his own manipulations.
The novel is a classic Barnes’ post-modern take on absolute truth- he loves to show how
questionable any individual’s interpretation of even major events and relationship can be and
shock the reader by getting you drawn into accepting their version and then showing you
another. There is a sight of constant struggle in the text, whereby meanings and truth change
with the discovery of certain unknown facts or suppressed memory.
The reader is not served with meaning; on the other hand, he has to struggle to join the
dots within. Even after getting a sense out of it, the reader is left with a state of constant
dilemma and confusion where it gets very hard to know if the meaning that he has arrived at is
the final meaning, the meaning in the true sense. Multiple reading of the text might bring out
