Indeterminacy, Anti-tradition, Absurdity

Julian Barnes (1946-) is one of the most important contemporary Britishnovelists. His latest work The Sense of an Ending has aroused great attention and withthis novel he also won of the Man Booker Prize in2011. The novels of Barnes are fullof unique historical insights from the beginning to the end. His sound literaryattainment and extraordinary style of writing fulfill his distinctive writingcharacteristics. When questioning the reality of history, Barnes also endures hisconstant post-modern style of writing at the same time and uses a variety ofpost-modern writing techniques.Different from the research of Barnes in foreign countries, domestic scholarsmainly focus on his view of the authenticity of history in his works and China is stillon its primary stage on studying Julian Barnes’s works. The most popular text thatadopted by the scholars is the novel Flaubert’s Parrot. Till today only four of hisnovels and one collection of short stories have been translated into Chinese. Theincomplete of translation of Barnes’s novels restricts the research of his works tosome extent. Therefore, Chinese critics show relatively less interests in his novel thanabroad.As a breakthrough point on Barnes novels, postmodernism has a more positivesignificance. The period from the end of the20th century to the early21st century isthe era saw rapid development and changes, the quick development of materialprogress leads to a series of human thinking. People continue to reflect on thesignificance of their own existence. Through these reflections, the traditional orderand authority also have undergone impacts from various aspects. The postmodernistschallenge authority constantly and this is considered as a kind of correction ofmodernism and brings it to a great height of development. The principle ofindeterminacy in postmodernism and a variety of highly original techniques are alsoused by most of the postmodernist writers. Whatever the principle of indeterminacyor other postmodern writing means like parody, collage and black humor, they servethe same function-to deconstruct the center.Julian Barnes, as a distinguished spokesperson of novelists in the21st century,applied postmodern writing techniques to his novel as well. There is no lack ofpostmodern characteristics in The Sense of an Ending. In view of the rare analysis ofBarnes’s novel from the aspect of postmodernism at home and abroad, this paper attempts to explore the three most prominent postmodern characteristics in The Senseof an Ending based on the theory of postmodernism.The paper is made up of five parts. The First Chapter provides a briefintroduction to the life and literary achievements of Julian Barnes. For the purpose ofallowing the readers to have a comprehensive understanding of Julian Barnes, somecritics’ reviews are cited. The First Chapter is the theoretical basis of the entire paper.Barnes’s works are largely influenced by postmodernism. This chapter focuses onwhat postmodernism is and represents the basic characteristics of postmodernism inpostmodernist fiction. The Second Chapter to the Fourth Chapter are the main bodyof the paper, which discusses three prominent postmodern characteristics in the novel,namely, indeterminacy, postmodern narrative discourse and absurdity. Each chapter ofthis paper has carried out a detailed analysis and discussion combined with the novelclosely. The last part is the summary of the whole text. This part sorts andsummarizes the ideas in this paper. The reason why this novel is readable is thatJulian Barnes applied simple language in his writing and parody everyday life, whichmakes the novel suitable for the masses. Moreover, the postmodern features of thenovel promote the readers to participate in the rebuilding of the novel and theirinterests of reading are heightened. In addition, absurdity in the novel also reflectsBarnes’s humanistic care for the little. He conveys his ideas through a nobody’stragicomedy that the society is full of chaos and uncertainty, but man needs to learnhow to brew new hope in despair.