Julian Barnes’The Sense of an Ending as a Postmodern Historiographic Metafiction

Abstract

The major thrust of this research is toexplore how the postmodern metafiction opens up alternative perspectives to the constructed notion of truth,objectivity and validity of narration told by protagonist Tony in Barnes' novel,The Sense of an Ending.The self-reflexive narration by the protagonist,Tony, is questioned by installing and subverting at the same time as which bears no objective presentations. For him, understandings of his past turned out to be rather his lies andself-delusionlater made himfeel paranoia intheremaining life. Tony's recalling of past is challenged when he got the letter given by Veronica finds his direct or indirect role regarding the death of Adrian before that for Tony, the death of Adrian was to meet the philosophical reasoning of his suicidal note. On this light, it is proved that his memory is inevitably unreliable, imperfect and his intentionally fragmented story telling was a construct that produces unrest and remorse on him as he confesses his own responsibility for. In this way, the choice of documentation was subjective and made differences between the world of himself and reality which seeks the readers to see his each and every structures critically in Barnes' novel,The Sense of an Ending.