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Anthony (Tony) Webster
A latecomer to the all-boys school that Tony attends, Adrian joins Tony’s friend group but remains at a certain distance from the others. Like them, he’s fascinated by literature and philosophy—his preferred authors are Camus and Nietzsche—but unlike the others, he is outwardly earnest about his intellectual leanings, embracing seriousness and frustrated that others around him refuse to be as serious. Adrian is recognized by all the school’s teachers as a brilliant young student: one of them even offers (though half in jest) to give Adrian his job when he retires in a few years. Adrian is particularly obsessed with the existentialist question of what makes a life worth living, and whether one can logically deduce such meaning from abstract theorizing. Adrian ultimately goes on to commit suicide years later, and for most of his life, Tony believes that Adrian killed himself because he reasoned his way into it. By the end of the novel, however, it seems that Adrian may have done so for more concrete reasons—he slept with his girlfriend Veronica’s mother, Sarah, who became pregnant. But no airtight conclusion is ever reached about Adrian’s ultimate motives (just as other elements of his life—his parents are divorced and he doesn’t share much about them, for instance—remain hidden too). Instead, the ability to trace causation and responsibility to a single source—something Adrian has always wanted to be able to do—is, in the novel, revealed to be ultimately impossible.
Adrian Finn Quotes in The Sense of an Ending
The The Sense of an Ending quotes below are all either spoken by Adrian Finn or refer to Adrian Finn . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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One Quotes
“That’s one of the central problems of history, isn’t it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us?”
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In history class, Adrian—the class star—has just proposed a view of historical responsibility in which it would be possible, all difficulties to the contrary, to isolate a chain of causality and fix the cause of certain events in individual people and discrete actions. Here, however, he acknowledges that his own view of historical responsibility is inevitably biased and partial. In high school, history is often considered to be the compilation of facts and figures, events and social forces, that make up the past: but Adrian exposes one major problem of knowledge at the heart of historical research even when it Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos
“History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”
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This is another of Adrian’s resounding intellectual statements, uttered during one of the high school history classes with Old Joe Hunt—and one that ends up deeply impacting Tony’s view of history, agency, and his own past. The occasion is the final history class of the semester, when Old Joe Hunt has asked the boys to think about the very definition of history. While the others respond glibly and ironically, Adrian characteristically takes the question seriously, even if he distances himself from this quotation by claiming that he got it from a French historian named Patrick Lagrange (who doesn’t exist). Once Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam doloremque
“I hate the way the English have of not being serious about being serious. I really hate it.”
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Tony has just introduced Veronica to Adrian and his other friends, and is eager to know what they think of her. He’s also just learned that Veronica’s brother Jack attends Cambridge with Adrian, and Tony is feeling both curious about him and insecure because of the rarefied environment to which they belong and from which he (Tony) feels excluded. Adrian, however, doesn’t want to share many details about Jack or his crowd—this is the only remark he makes about them. In a way, Adrian’s frustration with the “unserious” nature of English people goes back to high school, when he participated Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Mol
I did, eventually, find myself thinking straight. That’s to say, understanding Adrian’s reasons, respecting them, and admiring him. He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reason to justify it. And call the result common sense.
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Tony has returned from his trip to the United States to learn that Adrian has killed himself, and has left a full record of his reasons for doing so. At first, Tony is shocked, upset, and confused: he and Alex agree that the suicide is a “terrible waste,” as they call it. But here he reflects that there are reasons to admire Adrian’s decision, which ostensibly stemmed from his own theory about the necessity to philosophically judge whether life was worth living or not, and to act on the results of that decision. However, the novel will go on to Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore labor
Two Quotes
“The question of accumulation,” Adrian had written. […] Life isn’t just addition and subtraction. There’s also the accumulation, the multiplication, of loss, of failure.
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Tony thinks back to the single-page fragment that is the only part of Adrian’s diary he’ll ever get the chance to read. Adrian had written a number of letters down in the shape of formulae, with multiplication, addition, and subtraction symbols. This was Adrian’s abstract, theoretical way of attempting to understand and isolate the relationships between people in his life—and therefore, perhaps, to assign some kind of responsibility for their actions. Tony takes up this idea in a more metaphorical register: at one point he quotes a poet, Philip Larkin, on the difference between mere increase and accumulation. The idea Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debit
Remorse, etymologically, is the action of biting again: that’s what the feeling does to you. Imagine the strength of the bite when I reread my words. They seemed like some ancient curse I had forgotten even uttering. Of course I don’t—I didn’t—believe in curses. That’s to say, in words producing events. But the very action of naming something that subsequently happens—of wishing specific evil, and that evil coming to pass—this still has a shiver of the otherworldly about it.
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Having encountered Adrian’s son in the flesh, and having recognized him, Tony has realized what he thinks is the truth: that Veronica became pregnant with Adrian’s son so many years ago, and that this was the reason Adrian killed himself. Here he thinks back to the angry, bitter letter he’d written to Veronica and Adrian. In it, he’d written that he hoped Veronica could get pregnant before Adrian got sick of her; he’d mentioned how cursed any child of theirs would be at having the two of them for parents. Although Tony realizes that simply writing the letter didn’t make Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Mo
No, nothing to do with cleverness; and even less with moral courage. He didn’t grandly refuse an existential gift; he was afraid of the pram in the hall.
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In continuing to reflect on his epiphany about Adrian’s son, Tony is forced to reevaluate the way he’s understood Adrian and his actions for the past forty years. Adrian has always been a counter-example to Tony’s own life: Adrian was the brilliant student, the one who was happy with Veronica, and the one who carefully considered the philosophical meaning of life and, finding it unsatisfying, was courageous enough to follow through with the consequences of his conclusion. His suicide was, Tony had concluded, certainly unlike that of Robson, who killed himself once his girlfriend became pregnant. Now, however, Adrian looks Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia so
I looked at the chain of responsibility. I saw my initial in there. I remembered that in my ugly letter I had urged Adrian to consult Veronica’s mother. I replayed the words that would forever haunt me. As would Adrian’s unfinished sentence, “So, for instance, if Tony…”
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Only at the very end of the novel does Tony fully comprehend the relationships indicated by the one fragment of Adrian’s diary that Veronica allowed him to read. Adrian had had an affair with Veronica’s mother, and it had resulted in a child, born mentally disabled—a child whom Veronica nonetheless spent her life helping to care for. Of course, Tony recognizes that even though his initial is on the page—even though he was the one to tell Adrian to “consult” with Veronica’s mother about Veronica’s “damage”—he doesn’t bear all the blame for this set of events. But the fact that Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui di
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Adrian Finn Character Timeline in The Sense of an Ending
The timeline below shows where the character Adrian Finn appears in The Sense of an Ending. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
One
Adrian Finn, tall and shy, arrived at school long after friend groups were decided and formed,...
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...to their relief, who replied vaguely that there was unrest. Old Joe Hunt turned to Adrian, who replied that according to one line of historical thought, all one can say about...
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At the break, Tony introduced himself and said he was impressed by his line; Adrian said he was disappointed the teacher didn’t explore his idea in depth. Tony thought that...
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Phil Dixon handed out a poem with no identifying information and asked Adrian what the poem was about. He immediately replied, “Eros and Thanatos,” clarifying, “Sex and Death,”...
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Adrian was slowly absorbed into Tony’s group, but without adopting their attitudes. He joined the responses...
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Tony now recalls Colin complaining about his parents being “bastards”: Adrian ironically asked if they were like Henry the Eighth. The cause of Colin’s anger was...
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...all systems were corrupt and that there was no better alternative than “hedonistic chaos.” But Adrian pushed them to consider how philosophy might be applied to life. They all had their...
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Old Joe Hunt asked Adrian what he thought. He said that assigning responsibility was always a cop-out: by blaming one...
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...assembly, the headmaster announced that Robson of the Science Sixth had died over the weekend. Adrian repeated, “Eros and Thanatos,” to the others, saying that Thanatos had won again. The boys...
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...debated how he knew how to do it, and wondered what his girlfriend was like. Adrian then said that according to Camus, suicide was the only true, fundamental philosophical question. Ultimately,...
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Tony remembers grilling Adrian about his parents’ divorce, the only remotely novelistic-seeming event in their lives. He deflected their...
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Adrian characteristically said that history is the certainty that results from imperfect memory, joined to inadequate...
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Hunt, after a while, replied that Adrian might underestimate historians, who have always had to deal with lack of direct evidence. There...
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Tony and his friends dispersed: Adrian won a scholarship to Cambridge, while Tony headed to Bristol to “read” (study) history. They...
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...Alex what his father did, and his answer (marine insurance) surprised Tony. She asked if Adrian knew anyone she did at Cambridge, and her talk of dons and colleges made Tony...
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After Veronica left, Tony asked his friends what they thought. Adrian said he’d heard of Jack and knew of the people he went around with. When...
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...should be, how his story should continue. Six months later, he received a letter from Adrian—rare, since Adrian was working hard for finals. Tony assumed he’d do postgraduate work, then academia...
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Tony felt angry and bitter at this ethical posturing, the idea that Adrian would stop having sex with Veronica if Tony objected (unless, he thought, she was “stringing...
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...a 2:1). He did spend some time imagining how Veronica would complain about him to Adrian.
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...as he can now remember, said what he thought of their “moral scruples.” He advised Adrian to be prudent, since Veronica seemed to him to have suffered “damage” a long time...
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Tony never heard back from Adrian, and began to lose touch with Colin and Alex too. After graduating, he left for...
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...his mail. At the top of the pile was a letter from Alex, saying that Adrian had killed himself. Alex had called Tony’s mother, who’d said she didn’t know where he...
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...a response to disappointed love. None of these criteria applied either to Robson or to Adrian. Adrian’s letter to the coroner said that life was a gift given without anyone asking...
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Alex and Tony discussed how Adrian killed himself: he cut his wrists in the bath during a weekend when his flatmates...
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Adrian had asked to be cremated and his ashes to be scattered: he considered it a...
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Alex said that the last time he saw Adrian, he’d said he was in love. Silently calling Veronica a bitch, Tony decided that Veronica...
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Back home, Tony conveyed some of the conversation to his mother. Tony’s mother said that Adrian was too clever—that someone like that could argue himself into anything, leaving common sense behind....
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Finally, Tony came around to understanding and admiring Adrian’s reasons, his logical reasoning—so different than the knee-jerk way most people make decisions. He decided...
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...old memories—turning past into anecdote already. They recalled, though, that they had never been to Adrian’s home, though he’d been to all of theirs. They swore to repeat the reunion annually....
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Two
...as friends die and leave you to revisit your former self. He thinks back to Adrian’s line about the imperfections of history. Lots of official history has happened in Tony’s life,...
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...letter from Mrs. Ford. She says she thinks he should have what is attached, since Adrian always spoke warmly of him. She isn’t quite sure of her motives, but is sorry...
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...to ask what else he’s been left. She replies that it’s a diary belonging to Adrian Finn. Veronica Ford apparently has said she isn’t yet ready to part with it. Tony...
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...and grateful: he tries to return to the few things he remembers about Jack, including Adrian’s harsh judgment about the way English people have a way of not being serious about...
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Finally, Tony receives a letter from Mrs. Marriott containing what she calls a “fragment” of Adrian’s diary, from what seems like a page at random. The text is written in numbered...
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Tony is first struck by how admirable Adrian still seems, how intense his rational argumentation still remains. He suggests that if psychologists were...
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Tony finds himself comparing his life to Adrian’s: he wonders, thinking of a certain poet, if his life had “increased” in richness and...
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...he never asked for a meeting, then finally asks her if she’ll let him have Adrian’s diary. Veronica replies that she’s burnt it. First theft, then arson, Tony thinks angrily. But...
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...with a theory: she needed to say something in person, which was that she’d burnt Adrian’s diary—something that she wouldn’t have wanted in writing.
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The letter, reproduced in the text, is addressed to Adrian but also to Veronica, whom he calls the “Bitch.” Tony says he hopes that the...
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...that he’ll be his own character witness should he try to make any fuss about Adrian’s diary. He thinks, then, about how this was the last piece of communication Adrian received...
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The next day, Tony keeps thinking about himself, Adrian, and Veronica, and about how much more hurtful people can be when young. He thinks...
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Tony then thinks about Adrian again, about how compared to Adrian he’d always been a “muddler,” settling for life’s banal...
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Tony thinks back to Adrian’s diary and what he had written about “accumulation”: life is not just the addition or...
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Tony envies the clarity of Adrian’s life: in your twenties, he reflects, you have much greater certainty of what life is,...
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...have carried resentment for it over many years: this would perhaps justify her destruction of Adrian’s diary.
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...their memories won’t be any better than his, and imagines the painful things about him, Adrian, and Veronica they might say. Mrs. Ford is dead, and Jack abroad: Veronica is the...
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...eyes, color, and expression, “corroborated” by his height and bone structure. This had to be Adrian’s son. Tony’s first reaction is to think about what he wrote in his letter to...
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...life. Now he has some answers: she had gotten pregnant, and perhaps the trauma of Adrian’s suicide had affected her unborn child. Her son can’t function independently and needs constant support....
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...own, and now must return to his own past to reevaluate it. He thinks of Adrian, his philosopher friend whose intellectual acumen and noble gesture of suicide has reemphasized, as time...
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...on good terms with everyone. He now has a special kind of remorse, for hurting someone—Adrian—who thought he knew how to avoid being hurt.
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...them. The care worker goes over to Tony and, introducing himself as Terry, says that “Adrian” (Jr.) is upset by Tony’s presence. Tony apologizes, saying he doesn’t want to upset anyone...
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...Tony minds him asking who he is: Tony replies that he was a friend of Adrian (Jr.)’s father many years ago, and used to know Adrian’s mother Veronica quite well too:...
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Terry replies that what Tony is saying doesn’t make sense. First, Tony clarifies: he knows Adrian’s mother as Veronica, but Mary is her second name, which is what Adrian calls her...
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Later, at home, Tony “gets it all”: why Mrs. Ford had Adrian’s diary, why she said his last months were happy, what Veronica meant by blood money,...
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...done wrong. He thinks of everything he could never know or understand. He thinks of Adrian’s definition of history, of a carefree woman frying eggs, unconcerned when one breaks, then later...
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