30 pages • 1 hour read
Julian BarnesThe Sense of an Ending
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Fallibility of Memory
The Sense of an Ending explores how memory’s imperfections shape personal narratives and the characters’ understanding of their pasts. Tony grapples with the unreliability of his recollections, as emotions color recollections of his relationships with Adrian and Veronica.
Tony’s perceptions of the past are challenged when he receives a portion of Adrian’s diary. The discrepancies between the diary’s contents and Tony’s memories force him to confront the limitations of his understanding and the possibility that his recollections may not be entirely accurate.
Exploring how the passage of years changes people and their relationships, Barnes shows the impact of time on identity. The novel presents time as a powerful force that shapes characters’ perspectives, leading them to reevaluate their past actions and redefine their sense of self. For example, Tony is forced to face his own envy and viciousness when reading his letter to Veronica and Adrian, and to reevaluate how he sees his former friend and girlfriend. Adrian is not the mature hero that he recalls, but a flawed man afraid to embrace the responsibilities of fatherhood. Veronica is not the conniving “snob” that he remembers. Rather than trying to manipulate him, for instance, she describes her parents’ deaths and mother’s memory loss honestly and plainly.
Tony’s reflections on his youth and interactions with friends during his school days demonstrate how time has altered his understanding of formative experiences. As he looks back on his impulsive and judgmental younger self, Tony realizes that the passage of time has softened his perspective. The novel’s exploration of aging emphasizes the significance of time in the characters’ lives. Tony’s retirement and encounters with old friends inspire him to contemplate the inevitability of change and the fleeting nature of youth. For example, Tony has not achieved the great adventures that he desired when he was younger. Instead of being with many women and living “as people in novels have lived,” Tony lives a more mundane life and mows the lawn (93).
Barnes emphasizes the complexity of human consciousness and the ways in which individuals construct their own versions of the past. Through Tony’s introspective journey, Barnes maps the inherent biases in memory and the importance of embracing uncertainty and multiple perspectives.
The Impact of the Past and Accountability
Barnes explores the entanglement of emotions and the lingering tensions between people, sometimes even after one of them has died. The novel probes the impact of past actions on present relationships and how unresolved conflicts continue to reverberate through the characters’ lives. As he attempts to reconnect with Veronica, Tony finds himself ensnared in unresolved conflicts and emotional barriers that impede open communication. For example, Veronica holds on to the nasty letter that Tony had sent her and Adrian and, by implication, anger and resentment.
Additionally, Tony’s attraction to Veronica and his adulation of Adrian create a problematic triangle that persists into Tony’s old age. He sees himself as mediocre compared with Adrian, whom he idolizes as brave and noble. Part of his journey will be discovering Adrian’s flaws and fallibility, and accepting his own shortcomings.
By the end, Tony has come to realize that he has never stopped relating to the people in his past life, and never will. Relationships have a matter or energy that, once created, cannot be destroyed but can only change forms.
As Tony confronts the weight of his actions and the moral implications of his decisions, Barnes explores the importance of coming to terms with the impact of one’s choices, both in one’s own life and on the lives of others. Tony’s interactions with Veronica and the revelation of his letter make him take a hard look at himself. His guilt deepens as he realizes the pain he caused both Adrian and Veronica. For Tony the past is not static, or even really the past, because he has not fully accepted its continuing impact on the present.
The Search for Understanding and Closure Amid Ambiguity
As Tony grapples with the ambiguous past, he seeks meaning and closure—the sense of an ending. Embarking on a quest to uncover the truth about his relationships with Adrian and Veronica, he does gain understanding. In the end, he realizes that the past can never be “closed.” The novel’s open-ended conclusion—on a note of a “great unrest”—reflects the idea that complete resolution is often unattainable and that the past may remain shrouded in mystery. Accepting this as a given may be the only form of certainty we have.
Tony searches for understanding to grapple with his sense of guilt over Adrian’s death. He blames himself, thinking that his letter propelled his friend’s suicide. Tony faces the obstacle of his self-centeredness. He sees events as revolving around him and his actions. As the novel progresses, Tony discovers that he is wrong: Adrian did not die by suicide because of the letter. Rather, he was afraid of embracing the traditional life of a father. In this way, Barnes critiques Western individualism, which emphasizes the individual. Barnes shows how Tony is not the locus of the universe. Instead, other people act based on their own motives and agency.
Tony does not find peace with ambiguity. Rather, he feels “great unrest.” In this way, the book emphasizes the lack of an objective reality. Readers, like Tony, are forced to confront and consider their own desire for answers and understanding.
The book challenges modernist writing, where the protagonist often finds some sense of truth and meaning. The ending emphasizes the postmodern idea that “there is no pure truth;” rather, “Barnes enables his readers […] to come to a striking realisation that there can never be objective reality/truth based on memories. To crown it all, reality/truth based on memories can even have potential for misguiding one in his/her present or future deeds” (Özçeli̇k, Kaya. “The Sense of an Ending: A Postmodern Challenge of Truth.” World Journal of English Language, Vol. 13, No. 1; 2023).
Related Titles
By Julian Barnes
