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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.