Friday, 15 March 2019

Thinking activity: Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes




Hello readers,
                          This blog is a part of thinking activity given by professor Dr.Dilip Barad sir to write our views regarding below questions. To see professor's blog click here






1. How do we understand the concept of suicide with reference to your reading of literature ranging from Renaissance play Hamlet, 20th century Existentialist philosophy and this 21st century novel Sense of an Ending?

Ans. "Once suicide was accepted as a common fact of society not as a noble Roman alternative, nor as the mortal sin it had been in the Middle Ages, nor as a special cause to be pleaded or warned against but simply as something people did, often and without much hesitation, like committing adultery, then it automatically became a common property of art" - Duaz 1971


People have different concept about suicide, rational thinkers like literary writers look suicide as an art and religious people look as a sin. Suicide is very interesting element in literature, for other people like doctors and businessman suicide is like failure of life and escaping from terrible experiences. While for literary writers suicide is Philosophical answer of life. If we see the Saussure's sign, signifier and signified then we come to know that it is all about language which create different meaning of death and suicide. Suicide is beyond the death, it is transcendental idea of writers. From the age of enlightenment the idea of suicide came into the canon of literary work. There are many suicidal events in the work of William Shakespeare, for instance 'Hamlet' in which Prince Hamlet's soliloquy "To be or not to be" was very significant about suicide. He did not committed suicide because he had faith in the divinity but somehow Hamlet also thought about philosophical answer of the life. In twentieth Century After the world wars and scientific theories cause of spiritual degradation in people's life. In addition, theory of Existentialism asked the question about existence and meaning of life. Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, the theorists of Existentialism gave the philosophical idea of suicide and said that suicide is beyond the death, it is not about failure in the life and escaping but it is all about transcendental idea of death, meaninglessness of life and absurdism. Further, in 21st century's 'Sense of an Ending' by Julian Barnes also have two episodes of suicide. There are two characters who committed suicide but it is not reliable facts that why they done suicide because it is said by other people, so we can say that Adrian's suicide is somehow seems philosophical but not reliable. However, psychologists say that it is all about Thanatos and Eros which are drive us into the life and death.  

There are many writers who committed suicides to see the list of writers who committed suicide click here


2. How do you understand memory and history with reference to your reading of this novel


Ans.  After reading the novel, we can say that memory and history are interrelated. I agree to the given definitions of history in the novel  that:

 'History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation'.

' History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated'

'History is the lies of the victors'

'History is the self-delusion of the defeated'

Hence, we can say that history is not that particular historian who is witness the historical event or it is not true that history written by victors, there are many histories of looser who defeated by victors. Memory is constructed by people in which they record what is good memory for them. If we deconstruct or see through multi-layers then we can't rely on any documented history because there  can be emotional attachment of the people in the documentary and also in this digital era written documentation can also be constructed or fake. so, accordingly to know the real documentation of the historical events we have to go in deep process and cross check everything.





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