Blog Post #9: Creative Project

Text: Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending

Essence: No matter how much time passes, the present is only fully understood through examining the choices of the past.

Brief Summary of Text: Tony Webster, a man in his sixties, attempts to recount his past in The Sense of an Ending, starting from his high school days. He and his three companions, of which Adrian Finn is by far the most philosophical and knowledgeable, build strong bonds in secondary school but eventually part ways for college. During this period, Tony meets Veronica Ford and begins a serious relationship that turns sour after their breakup, mainly due to Veronica and Adrian’s new new-found love for one another. Soon later however, Adrian Finn commits suicide, a tense conclusion to part 1 of 2 of this Man Booker Prize winner. In part 2, the much longer portion of the novel, Tony begins his quest of searching for Adrian’s motives of suicide. Through his constant prying of a now antagonistic Veronica, he discovers truths about himself in the cause of Adrian’s relationship downfall and suicide. Tony’s original perception is often proved false against actuality, and the tragic reality of his influence in Adrian’s life becomes clearer for him with his unrelenting search of Adrian’s diary, of which Veronica claims to have burned. In the end, Tony Webster finds out the unfortunate truth about Adrian’s death and the reason for Veronica’s utter detest for Tony. While the journey to a complete understanding of the past and present was heart-wrenching and personally degrading to Tony, at least now there is a sense of an ending.

Prompt: 2007 - In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present activities, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character’s relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

Thesis: In The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes Tony Webster must confront the broken friendship decisions of his past in order to gain a complete understanding of his present relationships.

Creative Project & Explanation: A well-written and detailed diary, the missing piece of evidence in Adrian’s suicide that includes personal entries from the book and self-generated theorems and proofs that reflect the complexity of past relationships while adhering to the philosophical outlook that Adrian Finn had on life.

For my creative project, I chose to make Adrian’s diary with an added portion of “Adrian’s theorems”, mathematical proofs that have implications on the deeper meanings behind relationships. The essence is that no matter how much time passes, the present is only fully understood through examining the choices of the past. In The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes Tony Webster must confront the broken friendship decisions of his past in order to gain a complete understanding of his present relationships.

Tony Webster’s initial reactions to Adrian’s death demonstrate how inconsistent Tony Webster’s understanding of the situation is compared to reality. He currently does not understand his past and therefore cannot comprehend the present. Tony believed that “Adrian loved her [Veronica], yet he had killed himself” (Barnes 56-57). While this claim may seem plausible to the answer-seeking mind of Tony Webster, the ending of the book reveals that it was not Veronica who caused the Adrian’s own suicide, but Veronica’s mom, who agreed to sleep with him. As Tony continues to look into the past, he sees that “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation” (Barnes 65). At this point, Tony is finally willing to admit that his memory has holes and that he is not necessarily the most reliable source. My project, Adrian’s diary, contains that reliable source of Adrian’s thoughts that Tony Webster never could have access to. Not only are Adrian’s thoughts throughout his entire life with Tony recorded in journal form, but theorems are also included that demonstrate the philosophical thoughtfulness of Adrian. This created journal also allows for an accurate examination of the past, the crucial essence in linking the past to Tony’s present relationships.

As author Julian Barnes reveals more to Tony Webster about his personality and memory, Tony is educated about his heavy role in the deterioration of his relationship with Adrian and eventual suicide. He recounts, “Then I thought about Adrian. My old friend who had killed himself. And this [letter] had been the last communication he had ever received from me” (107-108). This puzzle of Adrian’s suicide just become clearer as Tony has begun to connect the dots between the tragic diction of his letter (sent while Adrian and Veronica were beginning their relationship) and the resulting suicide of Adrian. However, when Veronica attempts to reveal to Tony more about Adrian’s death, she rebukes his still immature perspective, “You just don’t get it, do you? You never did, and you never will” (Barnes 138). Here, Tony is not thinking comprehensively enough into his past to realize that one of the people that Veronica is showing him is Adrian’s handicapped son—an example of Tony’s foggy past hindering the present.

At the end, when the entire picture had been revealed to Tony, he mentions, “I saw my initial in there. I remembered that in my ugly letter I had urged Adrian to consult Veronica’s mother. I replayed the words that would forever haunt me… I knew I couldn’t change, or mend, anything now” (Barnes 162-163). This is quite an unfortunate end to the relationship that started off so amorously during high school. With careful prodding and guidance, Tony is able to sift through the good and bad sides of his past and emerge with a full understanding of Adrian’s suicide. With my project, my goal was to capture the essence that a full understanding of the past will ultimately lead to a full understanding of the present.

Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Print.

"The End of “The Sense of an Ending”." Don't Mind the Mess. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2013. <http://theseversons.net/reading-list/sense/>.