“Memory is Identity”, Probing into a Persistent Barnesian Obsession: Narrative Art and Ethical Implications

Most of the fictional and nonfictional works by Julian Barnes deal with identity-related memory. Traditionally, memory has been the most important criterion of personal identity. The Barnesian assertion that “memory is identity and identity is memory” pertains to the statement that memory presupposes personal identity and vice versa, since it is the memory that convinces us that we are the same person as who we were, say, 20 years ago. By raking up the theme of memory, we are led to some interesting discoveries about the author’s persistence in his postmodernist literary investigation into the nature of narrative art and the ethical implications thereof. A logical development is expected to be found between the two through close textual analysis, so as to reveal aspects of his unique moral concern.