Citation

Carroll R. Textual Practice 2015; 29(1): 155-172.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015)

DOI

10.1080/0950236X.2014.955818

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In Julian Barnes's 2011 Man Booker Prize winning novel, The Sense of an Ending, the discovery of a forgotten letter prompts the narrator, Tony Webster, to reconsider the suicide of a brilliant school friend, Adrian Finn. The dramatic revelation of the existence of Finn's adult son (also called Adrian), borne of an extra-marital affair with his girlfriend's mother, is presented as offering a possible answer to the mystery of Finn's death. In this context, this article seeks to examine the representation of Finn's adult son as a person with a learning disability. In their book, Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse (2000), David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder critically examine the uses to which disability is put in narrative; this article will focus on the ways in which cognitive impairment is constructed in this novel. Depictions of disability in The Sense of an Ending will be situated within the context of representations of heterosexuality, reproductive sexuality and female sexuality; employing critical frameworks informed by both feminist and disability studies, this article will investigate the relationship between disability, maternal sexual transgression and discourses of normativity as represented in Barnes's novel. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

Language: en

Keywords

Suicide; Disability; Heterosexuality; Sexuality; Contemporary fiction; Feminist theory; Learning disability; Literary prizes