Assignment

          The New Literature

Name : Virani Dhara R.

Course : M. A. English

Semester : 4

Roll No : 4

Submitted to: Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English

Subject: The New Literature

Topic: # A study of Memory and Psychological Defense Mechanism in Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending:

# Introduction:

The  Sense of  an Ending,  which is  divided  into two parts, portrays a man in his sixties who is remembering or rather, constructing memories from his youth in the first part, and deconstructing the very same memories in  the  second part.  Through his  unreliable narrator, Julian  Barnes (2011)  poses  questions  regarding imperfections of memory and self-delusion. As Tony Webster, the narrator of the novella admits,  It strikes me that this may be one of the differences  between  youth  and  age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others. 

   Thus, the novella  demonstrates the imperfections of memory  and  how  the  human  mind  distorts  facts. Barnes indeed succeeds in creating a narrative which “underscores the ways people try to erase or edit their youthful  follies  and  disappointments” 

# Perception s and memories:

   Several factors affect our perceptions and memories, one  of  which  is  the  application  of  psychological defense  mechanisms.  When  applied  wisely, psychological  defense  mechanisms  protect  the individual from unwanted emotions which threaten the individual’s  well-being.  They  “allow individuals  to reduce cognitive dissonance and to minimize sudden changes  in  internal  and  external  environments”

     However, these mechanisms can be hazardous if an individual goes to extremes in applying them, in which case they downright distort his perception of reality.   In  The  Sense  of  an  Ending,  Tony  deploys  certain psychological defense mechanisms which distort his account of reality. When faced with documentations from past, he realizes how distorted and fallacious his account of reality has been and he is  forced to pass moral  judgments  on  his  own  character  which eventually makes him feel guilty and remorseful for the damage that he caused a long time ago, “Too much time has passed, too much damage has been done, for amends to be made" 

# A study of Memory and Psychological Defense Mechanism in Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending:

METHODOLOGY

Although a significant novella about memory and its imperfections, the critique on The Sense of an Ending has so far been limited to insubstantial reviews. The present  paper  aims  to  render  an  in-depth, psychological  analysis  in  order  to  illuminate  the intricate  workings  of  the  protagonist’s  mind. Accordingly,  the psychological defense mechanisms deployed by the protagonist which blur his perception of reality and eventually inflict great pain on him will be  investigated  in  light  of  psychological  and psychiatric findings. 

# MEMORY AND HISTORY

Memory and History In The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes tells the story of Tony Webster, an ordinary man in his sixties who has led a conventional life and is now basking in the idle days of retirement. This is all until he finds out that the mother of his college girlfriend, Veronica, has bequeathed him both £500 and the diary of his high school friend, Adrian. Startled by this unexpected call from the past, Tony is forced to go back in time and examine the course of his life.   In the  process of completing  the puzzle of his past, Tony  has  to  face  unresolved  issues  which  he  has completely banished from his consciousness. He has to find  answers to unresolved questions in his  past, questions that  he thought he had  solid  answers  for. However, Tony finds it utterly difficult to make sense of his past. He is fairly aware that his memories are tampered with through the years and are not reliable; history is after all “that certainty produced at the point where  the  imperfections  of  memory  meet  the inadequacies  of  documentation”  (Barnes,  2011,  p. 17).   Therefore,  he  pesters  Veronica  to  hand  over Adrian’s  diary,  hoping  that  its  contents  might  shed light on the dark holes in his past.   Tony is aware that his account of reality is tarnished with  fallacy.  He  admits  that  it  is  not  possible  to remember the past as it really happened,  “What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed” (Barnes, 2011, p. 4). As an unreliable narrator, Tony  is sincere  in that he knows  what he remembers is probably tarnished by fallacy and self-serving adjustments. “How often  do  we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts?”  (Barnes, 2011, p. 89). What  he does not know, however, is the extent that he has unconsciously tampered  with  reality.  As  mentioned  by  the psychologist Elizabeth Loftus (1991),  our memories are stored in  densely packed  mental drawers in our brain,  “They  are  also  constantly  being  emptied out, scattered about, and then stuffed back into place” (p. 27).  As we  remember  our memories,  we add  little details and delete “confusing or extraneous elements”

# A Study of Memory and Psychological Defence Mechanism:

A Study of Memory and Psychological Defense Mechanism in Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending  274     Walter  Menninger  (1995),  our  memories  are  not completely reliable and what  we remember may be “more wishful thinking than true reality” (p. 104). In his  book  on  imperfections  of  memory,  Goleman (1998) refers to the "double jeopardy" of memory,  Memory is attention in  the past tense:   what  you remember now  is what you noticed before. Memory is in double jeopardy, for apart from an initial skew in what is noticed, there can  be later biases in what is recalled. (p. 95)   Goleman (1998)  emphasizes that  information is not simply transmitted as it passes through the mind, it is rather transformed. As he reaffirms, “The mind takes in, uses, and stores information while it is prone to bias by the trade-off between anxiety and attention” (p. 58). Anxiety is of key importance in this process; our mind alters  disturbing  pieces  of  information  which  may create  anxiety.  To  do  so,  it  deploys  psychological defense mechanisms.   In The Sense of an Ending, Tony’s excessive use of certain psychological defense mechanisms distorts his memories harshly. In the following parts, the authors will try to give a clear picture of how he deploys these mechanisms in  the course  of  remembering his  past, and  how  the maladaptive  use  of these mechanisms leads to great feelings of anxiety in him. Freud who first  introduced  these  mechanisms  calls  them  “ego mechanisms of defense,” however, they are also called “adaptive mechanisms” and “defense mechanisms” by other psychologists and psychiatrists. Drawing on the work  of  George  E. Vaillant  (1977)  and George E. Vaillant (1994), these mechanisms  will  likewise  be referred to as “defense mechanisms”.  4.2  Memory  and  Psychological  Defense Mechanisms As  Vaillant  (1994)  points  out,  defense  mechanisms can “alter our perception of any or all of the following: subject (self), object (other), idea, or feeling” (p. 44). Generally, defense mechanisms are used by the mind in  order  to “make  life  tolerable”  (Vaillant, 1977, p. 16),  and  they  also  account  for  self-preserving interpretations and biased remembering  of the past. According to W. Walter. Menninger (1995), defense mechanisms  make  us  “remember  the  past  events unreliably” (p. 97). They allow us to remember a past that  does  not  wound  our  self-image,  “What  you remember  is  consistent  with  what  should  have happened in light of your current self-portrait” (Allen, 1995,  p.  102).  It  should  be  noted  that  defense mechanisms are not always harmful. In fact, in most cases,  these  adaptive  defenses  are  necessary  for keeping  one  healthy.  As  stated  by  Vaillant  (1977), “healthy”  defense  mechanisms  “contribute  to  the continued development of the individual” (p. 86). He further  explains  that  mature  defenses  are  generally adaptive  whereas  immature  defenses  are  generally maladaptive. In his opinion, defense mechanisms can be maladaptive in the following circumstances:  If a defense is used in a rigid, inflexible way,  if  it  is  motivated  more  by  past needs than by present and future reality, if  it  too  severely  distorts  the  present situation,  if  it  abolishes  rather  than limits gratification, or if it dams rather than  rechannels  the  expression  of feelings,  then  it  is  likely  to  be maladaptive. (p. 85)   In the Sense of an Ending, Tony deploys “immature” and “neurotic” defense mechanisms as he tries to make sense of  his past. As  it turns out  by the end  of  the novel, the defense mechanisms deployed by him are maladaptive. These mechanisms suit to justify his past for him and make it bearable for him to deal with his present, distort the past so strongly that his present is influenced, and are repressive in nature.   Tony, however, is not aware of the great extent that he has  tempered  with  reality.  Psychological  defense mechanisms  work  at  an  almost  unconscious  level. They are neither “conscious avoidance of problems,” nor do they entail “willpower.” “They rather facilitate “a  far  subtler  and  almost  entirely  unconscious processes” (Vaillant, 1977, p. 8). Almost oblivious to the tricky workings of his mind, Tony is manipulated by the tricks his mind plays in order to avoid anxiety.   Tony has unconsciously tried to hide some truths from his past.

# Conclusion:

Barnes’s The Sense of an 

Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending is a notable example of how the imperfections of memory and the self-delusion resulted from psychological defense mechanisms can sabotage one's life. Tony Webster often tends to take the reliability of his memories for granted. He builds his whole future based on how he defines his past, oblivious to the fact that “our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our lives. 

References

Barnes, Julian. (2011). The Sense of an Ending. Pdf. Retrieved from https://bok.cc/book/1177814/736cea

Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness, and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial,Article:Dec 1993AM J PSYCHOL,Willem A. WagenaarElizabeth LoftusKatherine Ketcham