This document summarizes themes and motifs in the novel The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. It discusses the themes of weakness of memory and aging, how memory becomes vague and imperfect over time. It also discusses the motif of suicide, noting there are two suicides in the novel - one character hangs himself after getting a girl pregnant, while the other suicide, of Adrian, is initially presented as rational but may not have been. The document also mentions a class conflict between two characters, Tony and Veronica.

1. Prakruti B. Bhatt
The New Literature
The Sense Of An
Ending
Theme and Motif in
The Sense of a Ending
Roll: No. 12

2. Weakness of Memory; and Aging
• Why does Veronica’s mother
have Adrian’s diary?
• Why does she want Tony to
read it?
• What is her in intention?
• Memory becomes vague and
imperfect

3. • “I don’t envy Adrian his Death, but I envy him
the clarity of his life,” Tony muses in old age.
“When you are in your twenties………….you
can remember your short life in its entirely.
Later, the memory becomes a thing of shreds
and patches.

4. Class Conflict
Class Conflict between Tony and Veronica

5. Motif (Suicide)
• There are two suicides:
• The First, Robson, who hangs himself after
getting a girl pregnant. “sorry, mum,” his
suicide note reads, according to rumour.
“Robson wasn’t exactly Eros - Thanatos
material,” comment one of Webster’s friends.

6. • The second suicide, a few years later, is
Adrian’s; we are first led to believe that his is
supremely rational, his own answer to the
philosophical problem which camus said was
the only real one. It then turns out that it might
not have been like that at all.

7. Thank you….