Writing style and language elements of the modern writer Julian Barnes is presented with reference to his novel 'The Sens

1. Writing style of Julian Barnes in The
Sense of an Ending
• Name: Poojaba Jadeja
• Roll No.: 20
• Year: 2015, Semester 4th
• Paper : 13: New Literature
• Submitted To: Smt. S. B. Gardi Department
of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University

3. Post modernist writing style
• Narrative technique
• Unarranged plot
• Fragmentations
• Trivia and simple language, and symbols

4. Writing style & Language elements

5. Repetitions & Recurrence
• Memory revisited
• Adrian’s dialogues and
answers
• Veronica’s satire
• “You still don’t get it. You
never did, and you never
will.

6. Deconstructive
• Tony’s deconstruction of his own narration
• Deconstructive lines
• Was this their exact exchange? Almost certainly not.
Still, it is my best memory of their exchange.
• I shouldn’t have been surprised. From my knowledge
and memory of her, outdated though it was,…

7. Humorous
• “pregnant” seemed to hover like chalk dust.
• “You’ll ruin your tyres if you go on like that.”
• “I trust you’ve counted the spoons, darling?”

8. Lyrical
So I waited till we had safely hurdled the
bump and said, “I wonder how many
badges that chap’s got.”
Silence. Speed bump.
“Do they all live in the same house?”
Silence. Speed bump.
“So pub night is Friday.”
Silence. Speed bump.
“Yes, we did go to Minsterworth together.
There was a moon that night.”
Silence. Speed bump…
“What thing?”
“About us still being able to be
friends.”
“Is that what I’m meant to say?”
“You’re meant to say what you think,
what you feel, for Christ’s sake,
what you mean.”
“All right. In that case I won’t say
it—what I’m meant to say.
Because I don’t think we can still
be friends.”

9. Simple - Philosophical
• “What don’t you know?”
“I can’t know what it is that I don’t know. That’s philosophically self-
evident.”
• “Because you didn’t need to?”
“Perhaps I didn’t want to.”
“Perhaps you didn’t want to because you didn’t need to.”
• “I hate the way the English have of not being serious about being serious.
I really hate it.”
• “You’re meant to say what you think, what you feel, for Christ’s sake,
what you mean.”
“All right. In that case I won’t say it—what I’m meant to say. Because I
don’t think…”

10. Language in Context of age
Adolescence - One
Adult/Mature – two
Metaphors
Time 1960s – 2000

11. Signs
• History classes
• Robson’s suicide
• Picture of Bridge
• Curse in Letter
• Margaret’s story
• Veronica’s hints

12. Symbols
• Bridge
• Diary
• Fruitcake
• Chips