International Journal of Literature and Arts

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Narrative Judgments on the Love and Friendship in Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending

Received: 19 August 2020    Accepted: 08 September 2020    Published: 19 September 2020
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Abstract

Julian Barnes is famous in contemporary literary world. His works have attracted many readers all over the world for his variety of writing style and his unceasing exploration of the truth of history and memory. As the Man Booker Prize winning novel in 2011, The Sense of an Ending mainly tells the story of the protagonist Tony Webster’s love relationship with Veronica Ford and his friendship with Adrian Finn through recalling the past. Taking the changing relationship among Tony, Veronica and Adrian as the main line, this paper mainly analyzes the different interpretive, ethical and aesthetic judgments and re-judgments made by Tony, the protagonist and the first person narrator, and the reader on the love and friendship in the novel in the light of James Phelan’s theory of narrative judgments. Through analysis, this paper shows the organic connections between the three types of narrative judgments, which not only promotes the narrative progression of the novel, but also realizes the perfect integration of the novel in narrative form, narrative ethics and narrative aesthetics. This process shows Barnes’ doubts about the reliability of human memory, which provides a better way for readers to understand the novel and appreciate Barnes’ superb narrative art.

DOI 10.11648/j.ijla.20200805.16
Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 8, Issue 5, September 2020)
Page(s) 298-307
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Julian Barnes, The sense of an Ending, Narrative Judgments, Narrative Art

References
[1] Guignery, Vanessa & Roberts, Ryan, eds. Conversations with Julian Barnes [M]. Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi, 2009.
[2] Qu, Shijing & Ren, Yiming. A History of Contemporary British Fiction [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Translation House, 2008.
[3] Masters, Tim. Man Booker Prize Won by Julian Barnes at Fourth Attempt [N]. BBC News. BBC. 18 Oct., 2011.
[4] Phelan, James. Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative [M]. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2007.
[5] Greaney, Michael (2014). The oddness of Julian Barnes and The Sense of an Ending. English, 63 (242): 225-240.
[6] Farsi, Roghayeh (2019). Positioning strategies and representation in fictional autobiography: The Sense of an Ending. Anglia, 137 (1): 84-104.
[7] Li, Hongqing (2018). Theses on history in Julian Barnes’s novel. Foreign Languages Research, 35 (3): 92-98, 112.
[8] Chen, Bo (2018). Ethics of memory narrative in The Sense of an Ending. Contemporary Foreign Literature, 39 (1): 96-103.
[9] Zhang, Lainqiao (2015). Ethical introspection in The Sense of an Ending. Contemporary Foreign Literature, 36 (3): 70-76.
[10] Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending [M]. New York: Vintage Books, 2012.
[11] Shang, Biwu (2010). A maternal love misread: Narrative Judgments in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy. Foreign Literature Studies, 32 (4): 60-69.
[12] Nie, Zhenzhao (2014). Introduction to Literary Ethical Criticism [M]. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2014.
[13] Liu, Maosheng (2018). The ethical tradition in Bernard Shaw’s theatrical narrative. Foreign Literature Studies, 40 (3): 67-76.
[14] Genette, Gérard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method [M]. New York: Cornell University Press, 1980.
[15] Phelan, James & Rabinowitz, Peter, eds. A Companion to Narrative Theory [M]. Hoboken: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005.
[16] Phelan, James. Narrative as Rhetoric: Technique, Audiences, Ethics, Ideology [M]. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1996.
Author Information
  • Faculty of English Language and Culture, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China

  • Faculty of English Language and Culture, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China

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    Liu Maosheng, Yang Junting. (2020). Narrative Judgments on the Love and Friendship in Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 8(5), 298-307. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200805.16

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    Liu Maosheng; Yang Junting. Narrative Judgments on the Love and Friendship in Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2020, 8(5), 298-307. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200805.16

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    AMA Style

    Liu Maosheng, Yang Junting. Narrative Judgments on the Love and Friendship in Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending. Int J Lit Arts. 2020;8(5):298-307. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200805.16

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijla.20200805.16,
      author = {Liu Maosheng and Yang Junting},
      title = {Narrative Judgments on the Love and Friendship in Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending},
      journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
      volume = {8},
      number = {5},
      pages = {298-307},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20200805.16},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200805.16},
      eprint = {https://download.sciencepg.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20200805.16},
      abstract = {Julian Barnes is famous in contemporary literary world. His works have attracted many readers all over the world for his variety of writing style and his unceasing exploration of the truth of history and memory. As the Man Booker Prize winning novel in 2011, The Sense of an Ending mainly tells the story of the protagonist Tony Webster’s love relationship with Veronica Ford and his friendship with Adrian Finn through recalling the past. Taking the changing relationship among Tony, Veronica and Adrian as the main line, this paper mainly analyzes the different interpretive, ethical and aesthetic judgments and re-judgments made by Tony, the protagonist and the first person narrator, and the reader on the love and friendship in the novel in the light of James Phelan’s theory of narrative judgments. Through analysis, this paper shows the organic connections between the three types of narrative judgments, which not only promotes the narrative progression of the novel, but also realizes the perfect integration of the novel in narrative form, narrative ethics and narrative aesthetics. This process shows Barnes’ doubts about the reliability of human memory, which provides a better way for readers to understand the novel and appreciate Barnes’ superb narrative art.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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