‘AND ONLY RECENTLY I’D BEEN GOING ON ABOUT HOW THE WITNESSES TO OUR LIVES DECREASE, AND WITH THEM OUR ESSENTIAL CORROBORATION’: A BAUDRILLARDIAN ANALYSIS OF THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

Author(s) : Breya and Nauman Khan

Abstract:

This research takes into account Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending in which the protagonist attempts to make sense of his life. Corresponding to his very endeavor of making sense, this research sets to hunt for the ‘real’. Protagonist’s insights about himself and his friends are therefore put under inquisition. The study sets to search for the answer that whether the protagonist is depicting the real picture of himself and of his friends, for he is observed to be engaged in dismantling his former self, negating his earlier stance and is involved in disowning his past acts. It is being in his very state of making sense of life, in still confronting his former self, contradicting what really was real that the study seeks for the validity of his depiction of others too. The research adopts Jean Baudrillard’s concept of Hyperreality as its methodology and employs his idea of Simulacrum to trail whether the act of recounting is really a self-delusion of those who are defeated for there is an other character in the narrative undertaken, involved in unfolding the events from the past, who exhibits other side of the story.
Key Words: Baudrillardian, Real, Simulacrum, Hyperreality