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Mrs. Sarah Ford
Veronica’s brother and a Cambridge student like Adrian, Jack is casual and sardonic, treating Tony with rather unconcerned bemusement during the weekend Tony spends at the family’s home. Tony feels insecure around Jack, due in part to his Cambridge education and in part to his privileged background. During that weekend, and decades later when he attempts to get back in touch with Jack, Tony continues to feel slighted by him, as though Jack is treating him with barely disguised contempt. This feeling is depicted as possibly based in some truth, though also stemming from intense insecurity on Tony’s part. In fact, in many ways Jack and Tony are similar in their “unseriousness,” which is something that Adrian finds frustrating about both of them.
Jack Ford Quotes in The Sense of an Ending
The The Sense of an Ending quotes below are all either spoken by Jack Ford or refer to Jack Ford . 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
“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
Two Quotes
Why did I imagine Brother Jack had seen me coming and was having a bit of fun? Perhaps because in this country shadings of class resist time longer than differentials in age. The Fords had been posher than the Websters back then, and they were jolly well going to stay that way. Or was this mere paranoia on my part?
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Tony has emailed Jack Ford, asking for his help in getting Adrian’s diary, which Veronica is refusing to hand over. Jack responds in a chipper, cheerful tone, making out as if he is dispatching his response from an internet café in Singapore, before he has to dash off to catch the next rickshaw. Tony is immediately suspicious, wondering if Jack is pulling his leg and thus implicitly making fun of him. Many years earlier, Tony had had a similar sense that Jack’s bemusement toward him barely disguised his contempt for his sister’s boyfriend. It’s difficult to tell altogether the extent 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. Ducim
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.
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After receiving another email from Jack (in the interest of pursuing Adrian’s diary), Tony begins to wonder if he really needs to feel as inferior to Veronica’s brother, and insecure around him, as he always has. He begins to wonder if perhaps life has dealt Jack just as many difficulties and disappointments as anyone else has had to face—perhaps Jack joined a multinational company after university graduation, but proved not quite dynamic and clever enough to face changing times; perhaps his life is rather quiet and depressing. After constructing a full-throated imaginary life narrative for Jack, however, Tony recognizes 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 corrup
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Jack Ford Character Timeline in The Sense of an Ending
The timeline below shows where the character Jack Ford appears in The Sense of an Ending. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
One
Veronica’s brother Jack was healthy, prone to laughter, and teasing with Veronica: to him Tony was the object...
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...roast lamb for Sunday lunch, and Tony remembered to say how delicious it was, though Jack winked at his father as if privately dismissing Tony’s attempt at manners.
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Jack didn’t show up to say goodbye when Tony left. He remembers Mrs. Ford leaning against...
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...of dons and colleges made Tony feel left out: only then did he learn that Jack attended Cambridge, studying moral sciences like Adrian.
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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 Tony asked what he thought...
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...just wanted to tell him that she had “traded up” to a Cambridge student like Jack. Tony stresses that this is how he interprets what happened, or rather how he now...
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...Veronica and Veronica’s father, who was so casually disdainful of Tony, and between her and Jack—though a certain distance between Veronica and her mother Sarah, who obviously saw Veronica for what...
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...been abused. He wonders if there was “inappropriate behavior” with Veronica’s father or her brother Jack, some “primal” moment of loss. He remembers Old Joe Hunt saying that mental states can...
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Two
...reflects. So he makes a series of phone calls: to Mrs. Marriott to ask for Jack Ford’s contact details; to Margaret to arrange a lunch date; and to his own lawyer,...
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Mrs. Marriott takes two weeks to give Tony Jack Ford’s email; Veronica has declined to have her contact details passed along. Tony sends a...
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After a week, Jack sends Veronica’s email along with a cheery note about blue skies in Sydney. Tony is...
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Tony thinks about how Jack’s contempt is still biting to him, forty years on. He wonders if his own cruel...
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...painful things about him, Adrian, and Veronica they might say. Mrs. Ford is dead, and Jack abroad: Veronica is the only one remaining.
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...with the Fords begin to resurface: the view from his attic room to a wood; Jack referring to Mrs. Ford as “the Mother”; Veronica’s sultry good-night kiss to him, after which...
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...nicer (“posher”) neighborhood. Tony has no idea what’s going on, so he cheerily asks how Jack is doing. She responds that Jack is Jack, and when he launches into another memory,...
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...put his affairs in order—which requires getting his hands on that diary. He writes to Jack, saying Veronica has been just as mystifying to him as she’s always been. He asks...
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