This presentation is a part of P.13 The New Literatures. It describes the role of memory in the novel of The Sense of an Ending.

1. Role of Memory in The Sense of
an Ending
Prepared By: Ranjan P. Velari
Class: M.A. Sem. 4
Paper No. 13: The New Literatures
Batch Year: 2014-16
PG Enrollment No.: 14101032
Email Id: ranjanvelari@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt. S.B. Gardi
Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University

2. Memory
Part 1
School Days
Suicide of Robson
Tony’s affair with Veronica
Weekend visit to Kent
Break up of Tony & Veronica
Letter from Sarah to Tony
Letter from Adrian to Tony
Letter from Alex to Tony
Marriage of Tony
Part 2 Documentation
Work Citation
Index

3. Memory
 Memory connected to mind
 It means something about
experiences of past or recalling the
past
 It is positive or negative
 Perspective of narrator
 We can’t relied in it totally because
it is the experience of narrator and so
may be it is constructed also
 The Sense of an Ending is the story
of one man coming to terms with the
mutable past.
 In this novel Tony Webster is the
narrator, 60 years old fellow recalls his
memories

4. The Sense of an Ending novel divided into two parts.
1. Memory
2. Documentation
 How memory plays a vital role in The Sense of an Ending?
Part 1 - Memory
School Days
 Three Friends of Tony- Colin, Alex and Adrian Finn
 Class of History: Teacher of History asked questions about
Henry Eighth, Characteristics of the age, First World War etc.
 Symbol of Watch: It is the symbol of their bond, they used
to wear watches with the face on the inside of the wrist.
 Class of English: Teacher of English Phil Dixon- a young
master just down from Cambridge
 Discussed about “Birth & Copulation, and Death” by T.S.
Eliot, Ted Hughes’s Poetry, Eros & Thanatos, Finn Continued
that Sex & Death.

5.  But Tony Webster can’t understand poem and he thinks that it is
about barn owl
 Sports: Three of them considered school sports crypto-fascist plan
fro repressing their sex-drive, Adrian joined the fencing club and did
the high jump
 School situated at Central London, description of their lifestyle in
London
 Idea of Parenthood: How parents behave with adolescence
children?
 Colin’s mother referred Tony as his ‘dark angel’
 Parents doubt their adolescent friendship, and thinks that it is
homosexual relationship
 A Broken Home: Adrian Finn’s mother had walked out years
before, leaving his dad to cope with Adrian and his sister.
 At that time they were book hungry, sex-hungry, meritocratic and
anarchistic.

6. Suicide of Robson
 He was in Science Sixth.
 Rumor spread that Robson had got his girlfriend
pregnant, hanged himself in the attic, and not been
found for two days.
 Idea of Virginity
 Eros & Thanatos- Adrian connected before the
day’s first lesson.
‘Thanatos wins again.’
 ‘Camus said that suicide was the only true
philosophical question.’
 Conclusion of Suicide: Arithmetical sense of the
term- increase of one in the human population

7. Tony’s affair with Veronica
 Veronica Mary Elizabeth Ford was reading Spanish, she liked poetry,
father was a civil servant
 He remembered that his bookshelves were more successful with
Veronica than his record collection
 Veronica shelves-held a lot of poetry, in volume and pamphlet form:
Eliot, Auden, MacNeice, Stevie Smith, Thom Gunn, Ted Hughes
 He measure her personality to see books- they seemed to be an
organic continuation of her mind and personality
 So many times Veronica argued with Tony. When he remember Phil
Dixon and Ted Hughes at that time she replied that,
‘Poets don’t run out of material the way novelist.’
 He remembered that she was five months older than him and
sometimes made it feel like five years.
 He never asker her whether she is virgin or not?

8. Weekend visit to Kent
 Tony invited to meet Veronica’s family
 Mr. Ford- Father of Veronica, He is large, fleshy and red-faced.
 Jack- Brother of Veronica, He is healthy sporting young men. He behaved
towards Tony as if he were an object of mild curiosity.
 Mrs. Sarah Ford- In comparison to her father and brother, her mother
ignored all the by-play around her. She is in early 4os.
 Tony observed her mother and compared her with beauty of Veronica.
 It is the principal factual memory of Tony.
 Insecurity- Over supper that Friday there was some questioning of his
social and intellectual credentials: He felt as if he were before a court of
inquiry.
 When he leaved Veronica’s house at that time Mr. Ford seized his
suitcase and told Mrs. Ford that ‘I trust you’ve counted the spoons,
darling?’
 To all these points he feels that he is from lower class and it is the effect
of class consciousness.

9. Break up of Tony and Veronica
 Veronica’s meeting with Tony’s friends
 Once time she asked Tony that ‘ Do you ever think
about where our relationship is heading?
 At that time she told Tony as coward. But Tony thinks
that he is peaceable.
 Arguments between Tony and Veronica
 He remembered the words ‘heading’, ‘stagnating’,
and ‘peaceable’.
 He never thought of himself as peaceable or its
opposite- until then.
 Events of Seven Bore
 At last they parted

10. Letter from Mrs. Sarah Ford to Tony Webster
 Letter was brief, she wrote in the letter that,
“ She was sorry to hear we had broken up, and sure I would
find someone more suitable. But she didn’t appear to mean
this in the sense that I was a scoundrel who deserved someone
of equally low moral character. Rather, she implied the
opposite: that I was well out of things, and she hoped for me.”
 Tony preserved this letter for proof.
Letter from Adrian to Tony
 In this letter Adrian said he was writing to ask his permission
to go out with Veronica.
 It is the suggestion of Veronica that Adrian should write this
letter.

11. Letter from Alex to Tony
 The top one contained a brief note from Alex. ‘Dear Tony’, it
read, Adrian died. He killed himself.
 To avoid engaging with this line of theory, I opened Alex’s
second letter. He said that Adrian had done it very efficiently,
and left a full account of his reasons. ‘Let’s meet and talk. Bar at
the Charing X Hotel? Phone me. Alex.’
 In the letter he wrote that “He cut his wrists in the bath.”
 He’d killed himself in a flat he shared with two fellow
postgraduates. The others had gone away for the weekend, so
Adrian had plenty of time to prepare. He’d written his letter to
the coroner, pinned a notice to the bathroom door reading. ‘DO
NOT ENTER- CALL POLICE- ADRIAN.’, run a bath, locked the door,
cut his wrists in the hot water, bled to death. He was found a day
and a half later.

12. Marriage of Tony Webster
 He started work as a trainee in arts
administration. Then He met Margaret;
they married, and three years later Susie
was born.
 After a dozen years Margaret took up
with a fellow who ran a restaurant.
 Susie grew up, and people started calling
her Susan. When she was twenty-four, he
walked her up the aisle of a register office.
Ken is a doctor; they have two kids now, a
boy and a girl.

13. Part 2 Documentation
 Mrs. Sarah Ford gave Tony to 5oo pounds with one envelope.
 Tony wants email of Veronica and her brother gave it.
 Veronica replied to Tony as “Blood Money”
 Tony can’t understand these words. He thought that no blood
had been spilt.
 Veronica hadn’t sent him the first page, or at last, or indicated
where this one came in the diary.
 Accumulation containing the integers, b, a1, a2, s, v?
b= s - v X a1 or
+
a2+ v+ a1 X s= b?
 Last word of diary, So, for instance, if Tony
And there the photocopy- this version of version –stopped!

14.  Envelope given by Veronica to Tony. He wrote this letter
to Adrian about bad things regarding Veronica and their
life.
 When Veronica and Tony meet at that time Veronica
tried to wanted to show something. Pub of people passing
near by Veronica’s car but Tony can’t understand.
 Tony send one email of Apology to Veronica but reply of
this email is like, ‘You still don’t get it. You never did, and
you never will. So stop even trying.’
 At last he comes to know that Mary is Junior Adrian’s
sister and this mentally retarded 40 years fellow is son of
Mrs. Sarah Ford and Adrian. A child damaged as a result.
 His life continued.
 Last words of this text-
“There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And
beyond these, there is unrest. There is great unrest. “

15. Work Cited:
Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending.
Trans. In The Land of Pain by Alphonse
Daudet. London: Great Britain, Jonathan
Cape, 2011.