Name: -
Yesha Bhatt M.
Course: -
M.A. English
Semester: - 4
Batch: -
2015-2017
Enrolment no: -
PG15101003
Submitted to: -
Smt. S.B.Gardi Dept. of English MKBU
Paper no: - The
New Literature
Topic: - Comparison of male
and female characters in “The Sense of an Ending”
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Introduction:
The novel “The
Sense of an Ending” is written by Julian Patrick Barnes. He is an essayist, short
story writer and a novelist. The book has published in 2011 and got Man Booker
Prize in the same year. The book is a psychological thriller. There a love
story and some life experiences of the protagonist Tony Webster. There is
suspense in the novel about suicide of Adrian Finn and the junior Adrian’s
mother.(Wikipedia)
In the novel, we can observe that female
characters are more powerful and mentally strong than male characters. If we
compare these characters, we can observe that what are the weaknesses and
strength of male and female characters. The most important thing is how the character
of Veronica develops from a betrayed girlfriend to a mother figure for Adrian
junior.
Comparison
of male and female characters in the novel...
Female
|
Male
|
Veronica Ford
|
Tony Webster
|
Veronica Ford
|
Adrian Finn
|
Sara Ford
|
Adrian Finn
|
His unnamed girlfriend
|
Robson
|
Veronica
and Tony Webster:
Tony Webster and Veronica were in love with
each other. She was from a High-class family and Tony was from middle-class
family. Because of this reason, Veronica’s father was upset with Veronica and
insulted Tony a lot. After Adrian’s arrival in Veronica’s life, she broke up
with Tony and started spending her life with Adrian.
After few
years we can observe a vast different in the character of Veronica. First, she
was a girl and after these many years, she was a woman as well as mother. She
has got maturity in her life after Adrian’s suicide and her mother’s death. She
has taken care of Junior Adrian and proved herself a good mother and a noble
woman. She was taking care of her boy friend and her mother’s child. This is
not an easy step to take in life; she has faced difficult time when she came to
know that his boyfriend and his mother booth are in a relationship.
On the other hand, if we observe Tony and his
behaviour he seems like the same boy he was in school. He is not able to
understand anything that Veronica wants to tell you and ultimately Veronica
gave up on him and told him that...
“You just don’t get it, do you? You
never did, and you never will.”
Tony is not
able to understand what was happening in his and Veronica’s life. He used to
concern Veronica a ‘woman of Mystery’.
“Of course, at times I’d been tempted
to set her down as the woman of mystery, as opposed to the woman of clarity I
married in Margaret. True, I hadn’t known where I was with her, couldn’t read
her heart or her mind or her motivation.”
He
was also not able to understand Veronica and her desires and perhaps that can
be the main reason of their break up and Veronica’s attraction towards Adrian.
If we observe Veronica’s behaviour, we can
feel her hatred towards Tony. Her silence is the anger of her. There is one
scene where Veronica is driving a car and Tony is sitting beside her. Tony asks
questions but Veronica is preferring being silent rather than explaining
everything. She wants Tony to understand everything as his own. She wants Tony
to realize that what he has done indirectly. His one wrong suggestion to Adrian
that he should consult Mrs. Sara Ford made Veronica and Adrian’s life a disaster.
Veronica’s anger and her silence in the driving scene present her maturity.
“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 Minster worth together. There was a moon that night.”
Silence. Speed bump. Now we turned into
the high street, with nothing but flat tarmac between us and the station, as
far as I remembered.”
We can observe her
hatred and anger when she says,
“At
least I had my seat belt on. This time Veronica’s parking technique consisted
of getting both nearside wheels up on the kerb at a speed of about twenty miles
an hour, then stamping on the brakes.
“Out,” she said, staring ahead.
I nodded, undid my seat belt, and slowly
got out of the car. I held the door open longer than necessary, just to annoy her
one last time, and said,
“You’ll
ruin your tyres if you go on like that.”
The
door was wrenched from my hand as she drove off.”
Veronica comes out as a noble character from
the girlfriend who betrayed his boyfriend. She can be seen as a mother who
sacrificed her jealousy, anger, and pain just to take care of the mentally and
physically deformed child. She has not married again and sacrificed her life
for her love and the child. Veronica was fighter. She fought with worse
circumstances of life and Tony was a man of destiny. As per him,
“What did I know of life, I who had
lived so carefully? Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him?
Who had the usual ambitions and settled all too quickly for them not being
realised? Who avoided being hurt and called it a capacity for survival? Who
paid his bills, stayed on good terms with everyone as far as possible, for whom
ecstasy and despair soon became just words once read in novels? One whose self rebukes
never really inflicted pain?”
Veronica
and Adrian:
Veronica broke up with Tony and started relationship
with Adrian. Veronica has emerged has powerful character than Adrian. When Tony
has narrated the story first, we come to know about the very powerful character
of Adrian as a philosopher. He was an intelligent student with high thinking
capacity. He was favourite among all teachers. We can find that by Tony’s
narrative,
“Adrian
Finn (22) had killed himself “while the balance of his mind was disturbed.”I remember
how angry that conventional phrase made me: I would have sworn on oath that
Adrian’s was the one mind which would never lose its balance.”
The reality
is quite different because Adrian was not able to manage the pain which life
has given him. He was a father of his girlfriend’s mother’s child, in short he
had an affair with his girlfriend’s mother, and that relationship has resulted
in formation of a baby. The baby was mentally and physically deformed and
Adrian was not able to handle this reality and suffering of a baby. He has committed suicide with a perfect
planning.
“He’d
written his letter to the coroner, pinned a notice to the bathroom door reading
“DO NOT ENTER—CALL POLICE—ADRIAN,” run a bath, locked the door, cut his wrists
in the hot water, bled to death. He was found a day and a half later.”
Veronica has not lost the hope. She has suffered
a lot and at the end emerged as the great woman and a mother. She has not quit
but she took responsibility of her brother Adrian junior.
Sara
Ford and Adrian Finn:
Sara Ford was Veronica’s mother and also a
bit jealous with her. Mrs. Ford’s character seems villainous because she is
jealous with Veronica and warns her boyfriends to take relationship with her. At
the end, she seems more courageous because she has given a birth to Adrian’s
child and she sent “Blood money” to Tony as a part of guilt.
Robson
and his girlfriend:
Robson was a student in the same school where
Adrian and Tony was studying. He has committed suicide because of her
girlfriend’s pregnancy. At that time Adrian, Tony and their friends were
blaming Robson for his act and considered him irresponsible. There is not any
description about Robson’s girlfriend. However, we can guess that she must have
survived. Robson had not the courage to take responsibility or to give a
commitment of marriage. After few years, Adrian has also done the same. In the novel,
these two males presented as escapists. Both have escaped from the situation
(life) when they and their loved one were in trouble.
Conclusion:
After comparison of male and female characters,
we can get an idea that female characters have taken good stand than male
characters. All males including Tony and Mr. Ford not much involved in
difficult situation than all female characters. The more courageous woman is
Veronica and then we can consider Mrs. Sara Ford as a brave one though she has
negative aspects.
Tony has never taken any important thing
seriously. He has driven by destiny all the time. He is not weak but he is man
with average thinking capacity. He has not any big life goals and may be that
is why he was happy in his life in the beginning of the novel. All female characters
have designed their destiny by their own choice. Tony’s wife Margret is also an
important female character because she is supporting her ex-husband even after
divorced and they are good friends. Thus, we can say that Barnes has depicted
21st century women in his novel.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Barnes, Julian. "The
sense of an Ending." Barnes, Julian. The sense of an Ending.
2011.
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