ThAct:Flipped Learning Activity - The Only Story
The Only Story
In This Video Julian Barnes's 2018 novel, The Only Story, is a poignant exploration of love, memory, and regret. Told in three parts, the novel follows Paul Roberts as he reflects on his youthful affair with Susan Macleod and the emotional aftermath that shapes his life.
At 19, Paul meets Susan, a 48-year-old married woman, at a suburban tennis club. Their relationship, unconventional and defiant, begins as a romantic escape but soon collides with harsh realities. Susan, trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage to Gordon Macleod, finds solace in Paul’s affection. The two eventually leave their town to live together in London, but their love story takes a dark turn.
As time passes, Susan’s struggles intensify. She sinks into alcoholism, weaving a web of lies that erodes their connection. Paul, once idealistic and devoted, comes to terms with the painful truth—love alone cannot heal Susan. Torn between duty and self-preservation, he ultimately chooses to walk away, leaving behind the woman who once meant everything to him.
Yet, the past lingers. Susan's decline continues she ages, battles dementia, and is eventually cared for by her daughter, Martha. By the time Paul reunites with her, she is a shadow of the person he once adored. Her death, though inevitable, leaves him feeling distant and empty, underscoring the novel’s central question: Is love worth the suffering it brings?
With echoes of The Sense of an Ending, The Only Story meditates on the way love shapes and haunts memory. Barnes crafts a narrative that is not just about passion, but about its consequences the weight of devotion, the erosion of innocence, and the quiet pain of remembering.
Video 2 Narrative Pattern | The Only Story
This video looks at how Julian Barnes combines old and new storytelling techniques in The Only Story. The novel does not follow a straight timeline. Instead, the older protagonist looks back on his past and questions if his memories are accurate. Barnes also shifts between first, second, and third-person narration, making the story more complex while exploring love, identity, and self-perception.
The video connects the novel to Dr. Samuel Johnson’s idea of a novel as a “small tale” about love. While The Only Story focuses on a major romance, it also challenges traditional ideas about love. It explores themes like desire, societal expectations, and patriarchy. The video also briefly compares Rafael Nadal’s success in tennis to the way women’s sports are often treated differently.
The novel shows how love changes over time from youthful excitement to emotional exhaustion. It suggests that people reshape their personal stories as they grow older. Barnes raises questions about choice and responsibility, linking them to Hindu epics, though the book mostly follows a structured timeline with some experimental elements. The novel is divided into three sections and includes flashbacks that mix memory with self-reflection.
A key part of the story is the unreliable narrator. The protagonist struggles to understand himself, making readers wonder if remembering the past brings clarity or just distorts reality. The video also discusses how words like “careful” and “careless” can change meaning based on interpretation. It highlights how people edit their own stories through diaries or social media to shape how others see them, showing how emotions influence memory.
Barnes’s use of an unreliable narrator connects to today’s “post-truth” world, encouraging readers to question information and recognize bias. The shift from first-person to third-person reflects the protagonist’s growing emotional distance from his past love. The video compares Barnes to Thomas Hardy, noting that while Hardy used third-person narration for big themes, Barnes creates a more personal experience by blending different perspectives. Through this style, Barnes explores love, memory, and the stories we tell ourselves.
Video 3 Theme of Love | Passion and Suffering | The Only Story
The video explores Julian Barnes’ The Only Story, focusing on its themes of love, passion, suffering, and the deep emotional effects of relationships. The novel asks an important question: is it better to love deeply and suffer more, or love less and suffer less? This question shows that love is not just about happiness and excitement it also involves pain, sacrifice, and change. The story suggests that deep love often comes with suffering.
The video also looks at the meaning of “passion,” which comes from the Latin word pati, meaning “to suffer.” The novel shows that love is not always something people can control. It can bring unexpected problems and emotional struggles. To explain this, the video uses a metaphor: some people guide their love life like a ship captain steering a boat, while others are like a floating log, carried by the waves without direction. This comparison shows how love can be unpredictable and overwhelming.
Another key idea is the difference between “knowledge” and “experience.” The video argues that love cannot be fully understood by thinking about it—it must be felt and lived. It also compares the struggles of love to the struggles in sports, where effort and sacrifice are necessary for success. Both require deep commitment, and the pain involved makes the experience feel real. Instead of showing love as simple or perfect, the novel presents it as a complicated journey that changes people.
In the end, The Only Story makes readers think about how love has shaped their own lives. It shows that love has two sides it brings both happiness and pain, control and chaos.
Video 4 Memory Novel | Memory and History | The Only Story
This video explores the theme of memory in Julian Barnes’ The Only Story and how it connects to morality, trauma, and personal history. It explains the difference between collective memory (shared by a group or society) and personal memory (shaped by individual emotions and experiences). Personal memories can be unreliable and may not match historical facts, making it hard to know what really happened and what is just a memory’s version of reality.
The video questions how reliable memory is since people’s recollections can change over time. Sometimes, people alter their memories to avoid facing painful truths, which affects how they see their past. In The Only Story, the main character, Paul, struggles with his memories and emotions. His changing memories shape how he understands his life and his own actions, showing how people may deceive themselves about responsibility and guilt.
The video also talks about the movie Memento, where the main character has short-term memory loss. This raises an important question: should someone be held responsible for actions they can’t remember? This idea connects to The Only Story, where the way people remember their past affects how they judge themselves. The discussion also mentions how trauma affects memory, especially for marginalized groups whose histories are sometimes changed or erased.
In the end, the video highlights how memory shapes identity, morality, and how we see the world. The difference between written history and personal memory makes us question how accurate history really is. The Only Story and similar works help us understand how people relate to their past and build their sense of self.
Video 5 Joan | Character Study | The Only Story
This video explores the character of Joan in The Only Story, showing how her emotional journey is different from Susan’s struggles. After her brother Gerald dies, Joan feels deep grief, but instead of withdrawing into sadness, she looks for comfort in different relationships. One of these relationships is with a younger man, which shows her attempt to heal and take control of her life. Joan is an independent woman who breaks social norms she enjoys solving crossword puzzles and smoking. However, despite her strong personality, she carries painful memories from her past, including childhood abuse and domestic violence.
Joan’s search for connection often leads to more emotional pain. She challenges traditional ideas of love and loyalty, but her experiences like waiting for a lover who marries someone else often leave her heartbroken. The novel suggests that people who are emotionally hurt tend to seek out others with similar pain. This idea is compared to a jigsaw puzzle, where people try to put themselves back together but often end up experiencing more suffering.
The story shows that emotional wounds rarely disappear completely. Joan, like many other characters, carries the weight of past trauma and grief. She finds comfort in pets, especially dogs, as a way to deal with painful memories. The act of sending a wreath after someone’s death is used as a symbol, questioning whether such gestures truly mean anything. In the end, Joan’s story highlights the main theme of The Only Story: love, loss, and emotional scars change people forever.
Video 6 Two Ways to Look at Life | The Only Story
This video explores Paul Roberts’ thoughts on two different ways of looking at life. One view sees life as a series of choices, where each decision creates new opportunities, and people are responsible for their own paths. Paul understands that his choices, especially in love, have shaped his life, bringing both happiness and regret.
The other view suggests that life is controlled by outside forces, with people simply drifting along, like a "bump on a log," without much control over what happens. Paul struggles with the question of whether his decisions were truly his own or influenced by things beyond his control.
Throughout the novel, Paul moves between these two ideas sometimes feeling in charge of his life, other times feeling powerless. This highlights the complexity of life and encourages readers to think about how much control they really have over their own futures.
Video 7 Question of Responsibility | The Only Story
This video explores the theme of responsibility through the character of Paul Roberts, who looks back on his past with regret. He struggles with the results of his choices, especially in his relationship with Suzanne, which involved domestic violence. Paul wonders if things would have been different if Suzanne’s husband, Gordon, had taken more responsibility. This theme is also present in Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending, where past decisions shape a person’s life.
The novel uses the image of a chain to represent responsibility, asking what happens when one link breaks and who should be blamed. It also compares this to trees bending in a cyclone, showing that being strong and flexible helps people deal with life’s problems. Another comparison is a snake weaving around obstacles to avoid danger, suggesting that adaptability is important in tough situations.
The story also looks at how people assign blame in relationships. It suggests that many focus on outside factors instead of recognizing their own role in conflicts. As Paul reflects, he starts to understand that true responsibility is not about blaming others but about accepting his mistakes and realizing how they affected those around him.
Video 8 Theme of Marriage | Critique of Marriage Institution | The Only Story
This video explores the idea that love and marriage do not always go together. The novel questions the traditional belief that marriage is an important life goal. Society often presents marriage as the key to happiness, but it can also bring struggles and pain. As ideas about relationships change with more people choosing live-in partnerships and divorce becoming more common Barnes asks whether marriage really guarantees happiness.
He compares marriage to a meal that starts off delicious but becomes less enjoyable over time. Many people stay in unhappy marriages out of habit or fear of change. Suzanne, for example, knows her marriage is failing but does not leave. The novel also shows the hidden suffering in marriages, as seen with Susan, who experiences abuse but chooses to stay silent.
Instead of giving a clear answer about marriage, the novel presents different experiences and encourages readers to think. It does not say marriage is always good or bad but asks whether it truly brings happiness or if love can exist outside society’s expectations.
Key Takeaways
After going through the resources, here are three important themes that stood out:
The Memories We Choose to Keep
Paul Roberts shows how people remember things in a way that protects their self-image. He keeps the memories that make him look good while ignoring or changing the ones that might make him feel guilty. This is something many people do they remember the past in a way that suits them. A similar example is found in An Artist of the Floating World, where the narrator, Masuji Ono, avoids facing his past mistakes. However, as the story continues, it becomes clear that he once used his art to support nationalism and must now deal with its consequences.The Nature of Love
The novel gives a realistic view of relationships, showing that love alone does not always bring happiness. People look for emotional connection in relationships, but when their needs are not met, problems arise. This idea is reflected in the question: Would you rather love more and suffer more, or love less and suffer less? Paul and Suzanne’s relationship shows that even deep love does not always lead to happiness. Barnes challenges the idea of love often seen in movies and books, instead presenting a more honest and complex view. Joan’s experience falling in love with an older man and ending up heartbroken further supports this theme.Recognizing One’s Own Faults
Paul tries to hide some parts of his past, but he also admits to his mistakes. He reflects on his actions, showing that he does not completely avoid responsibility. In stories based on memory, people often change or reshape events, but careful reading reveals the flaws in the characters. The novel suggests that true self-awareness comes from being honest not just about what others have done wrong, but also about one’s own mistakes. Looking inward and accepting one’s flaws is an important part of personal growth.
Character Analysis
Paul Roberts
- Role in the Story: Paul is the main character and narrator of the novel. He tells the story by looking back at his past, focusing on his love and loss.
- Personality and Motivations: Paul is thoughtful, nostalgic, and sometimes unreliable in his storytelling. His main goal is to understand his past relationship with Suzanne and how it shaped his life.
- Perspective in the Story: Since Paul is the one telling the story, his version of events is influenced by his emotions and selective memory. This makes readers question whether his account is completely accurate.
- Connection to Themes: Paul’s experiences highlight key themes like love, memory, and responsibility. He struggles with how he sees himself and whether he made the right choices, making him a complex and realistic character.
Suzanne
- Role in the Story: Suzanne is Paul’s love interest, and their relationship is central to the novel’s exploration of love and life choices.
- Personality and Motivations: Suzanne is emotionally troubled and seeks comfort in her relationship with Paul. However, she remains stuck in an unhappy marriage and struggles with her fears and insecurities.
- Perspective in the Story: Since Paul is the one telling the story, we only see Suzanne through his eyes. This means readers never fully know her true thoughts or feelings.
- Connection to Themes: Suzanne’s character shows that love does not always bring happiness. Her struggles with marriage and emotional pain highlight the complicated nature of relationships and personal suffering.
Joan
- Role in the Story: Joan is a close friend of Suzanne and the sister of Gerald, whose death deeply affects her.
- Personality and Motivations: Joan carries emotional wounds from her past and seeks comfort in romantic relationships. However, her affairs often leave her heartbroken. Over time, she distances herself from people and grows attached to dogs, finding them more dependable than humans.
- Symbolism: Suzanne’s dog, Sibyl, is a meaningful symbol. In mythology, the Sibyl was granted immortality but suffered as a result, reflecting the novel’s themes of love, suffering, and loneliness.
- Connection to Themes: Joan’s story shows how past trauma and heartbreak can shape a person’s life. Though she is strong, she ends up isolated, demonstrating that emotional pain often lingers, and true peace may only come with death.
Paul’s Journey
Paul, who narrates the story as an older man (likely between 59 and 70), undergoes a transformation from an idealistic young man to a person filled with regret. At 19, he falls deeply in love with Suzanne, a 48-year-old married woman, believing their love is pure and unstoppable. However, as time passes, he realizes the harsh realities of Suzanne’s life, including her struggles with alcoholism and emotional wounds. He begins the relationship full of passion but later feels burdened by the responsibility of caring for her. Eventually, he leaves her and moves abroad, making readers question whether this was an act of cowardice or a necessary choice for his own well-being.
Paul’s storytelling is fragmented and unreliable, showing how memory is imperfect. His version of events is shaped by his emotions, and he often struggles to be honest with himself. The novel suggests that people reshape their past to cope with pain, sometimes even deceiving themselves. Through Paul’s perspective, The Only Story explores themes of love, regret, and self-deception, encouraging readers to think about how personal history is constructed through memory.
Paul’s journey demonstrates how love, once full of passion, can turn into deep suffering. His experience shows that intense relationships often lead to disappointment. He also struggles with the balance between bravery and fear, often failing to act when it matters most. His decision to leave Suzanne instead of helping her through her suffering highlights his internal conflict between self-preservation and responsibility. The novel also questions traditional ideas like marriage, showing that they may not always bring happiness. Paul’s emotional struggles align with Jacques Lacan’s theory of desire his love for Suzanne gives his life meaning at first, but when it turns into suffering, he feels empty. Through Paul’s character, the novel explores the complex relationship between love, memory, and regret, making readers reflect on the challenges of human relationships and personal choices.
Narrative Techniques in The Only Story
Julian Barnes tells The Only Story in a unique way, using different techniques to shape how readers experience the story. The novel is written in the first person, meaning we only see events through Paul’s perspective. However, his perspective is limited he remembers and interprets things in his own way. His memories may be inaccurate or altered to justify his choices or deal with guilt. Because of this, Paul is an unreliable narrator, and we cannot fully trust his version of events.
Instead of telling the story in a clear order, the novel jumps between different moments in Paul’s life his young love with Suzanne, the struggles that follow, and his thoughts as an older man. This fragmented structure reflects how memory works, as people rarely remember things in a perfect sequence.
Paul’s way of telling the story also changes over time. At first, he refers to himself as "I," but later, he switches to "you" and finally "he." This shift shows how he becomes more detached from his past, as if he is trying to distance himself from his own mistakes.
These techniques help readers connect with Paul’s emotions. The novel does not present love as something simple and perfect. Instead, it shows that love is complicated and often painful. The way the story unfolds makes readers question what really happened and whether Paul is being completely honest.
Unlike traditional novels with a clear beginning and end, The Only Story moves between past and present, making it more reflective and thought-provoking. This style sets it apart, especially in how it explores memory and truth. It is similar to Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending, but here, the emotional impact is even stronger. Rather than a typical love story, the novel feels like a deep reflection on the past, filled with uncertainty, regret, and sorrow much like real life.
Thematic Connections
Memory and Unreliability: The Fragile Nature of Truth
The novel shows how unreliable memory can be. Paul tells his own story, but his memories may not be completely accurate. Over time, he remembers things differently, sometimes changing details or leaving parts out. This makes the reader question what really happened. The novel suggests that truth is not always simple people remember things in their own way. This idea also applies to history, which is often shaped by those who tell it rather than just by facts.
Love, Passion, and Suffering: The Cost of Desire
Love in the novel is not shown as something happy and fulfilling but as a source of pain. Paul falls deeply in love with Suzanne, but their relationship brings more suffering than joy. Love can consume a person, much like passion which originally meant suffering. This connects to Lacan’s idea that desire always leads to emptiness because people chase something they can never fully have. Paul believes love is the most important thing in life, but in the end, he realizes it can also lead to loss and sadness.
Responsibility and Cowardice: Avoiding Consequences
Paul often shows a lack of courage. When Suzanne suffers abuse from her husband, Gordon, Paul does not help her he walks away. Later, when her mental and emotional state worsens, he leaves the country instead of taking responsibility. He does not face the consequences of his actions or the pain Suzanne goes through. In the end, his cowardice leaves him alone and full of regret. His failure to act not only hurts Suzanne but also makes him feel guilty and unable to move forward.
Critique of Marriage: A Restriction Rather Than a Union
The novel presents marriage as something that limits people instead of making them happy. Suzanne and Gordon’s marriage is toxic and abusive, showing that marriage can bring suffering rather than joy. Paul sees marriage as a place where love fades instead of growing. Instead of being a happy ending, marriage in the novel feels like a burden that takes away freedom and passion.
Two Views on Life: Control vs. Chaos
The novel contrasts two ways of looking at life. One idea is that people control their own fate, like a captain steering a ship. The other idea is that life is unpredictable, like an object drifting in a river with no control. At first, Paul believes he can shape his love story, but later, he realizes life is uncertain and often painful. This theme makes readers think about whether people truly make their own choices or if life is shaped by outside forces.
Personal Reflection
The novel asks an important question: "Would you rather love more and suffer more, or love less and suffer less?" Through Paul’s experiences, we see both sides of this dilemma. As a young man, Paul believes love is worth any pain it may bring. He deeply loves Suzanne, despite the difficulties. But as time passes, he realizes their love causes more pain than happiness. He begins to wonder if love is truly worth the heartbreak.
Suzanne’s struggles and Paul’s eventual emotional detachment show that loving deeply makes people more vulnerable to suffering. Paul starts out believing love is the most important thing in life, but in the end, he is left alone, unsure if it was worth it. The novel does not give a clear answer but invites readers to think about their own choices whether it is better to experience deep love and inevitable sorrow or to avoid love to protect oneself from pain.
Personal Thoughts
The novel gives a realistic view of love, challenging the idea that love always leads to happiness. It shows that passion and suffering often go together. The deeper someone loves, the more they risk being hurt. Many people feel an emptiness inside and try to fill it with love. When love works, everything seems perfect, but when it fails, it leaves an even bigger void. In such moments, moving forward becomes difficult. Relying on someone else for happiness can lead to deep suffering.
Journal Entry – Eric’s Thoughts
Paul had a habit of making things more complicated than they needed to be whether it was love, life, or responsibility. He always turned things into puzzles, searching for deeper meaning. I think that’s what happens when you overthink everything. Personally, I prefer to keep life simple. You take things as they come instead of trying to shape them into something else.
That night at the fair still stays in my mind the way Paul ran when those thugs came after us. I don’t completely blame him; fear makes people act in unexpected ways. But that moment revealed something about him, something he probably didn’t want to admit. Despite all his talk about love and bravery, when it truly mattered, he ran. After that, I saw him differently.
And Suzanne? I never really understood why Paul was so drawn to her. Maybe it was the excitement, the rebellion, the idea of doing something bold. But love? I think he wanted to believe in it more than he actually felt it. In the end, what did love give him? Just a story a story he keeps replaying in his mind, trying to make sense of it.
Some people, like Paul, spend their lives searching for meaning. But sometimes, things just happen. And you move on.
References :
- Barad , Dilip. “Flipped Learning Activity Worksheet on The Only Story.” ResearchGate, Jan. 2025, www.researchgate.net/publication/388555499_Flipped_Learning_Activity_Worksheet_on_The_Only_Story. Accessed 19 feb. 2025.
- Barad, Dilip. "Exploring Narrative Patterns in Julian Barnes' The Only Story." LangLit, vol. 6, no. 4, May 2020, pp. 179-188. ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371874310. Accessed 19 Feb. 2025.
- Barad, Dilip. "Symbolism of Crossword Puzzles: Order, Intellect, and Existential Respite in Julian Barnes's The Only Story." LangLit, vol. 8, no. 1, Aug. 2021, pp. 285-291. ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372537102. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.
- Barad, Dilip. “The Only Story.” The Only Story, 3 Feb. 2022, blog.dilipbarad.com/2022/02/the-only-story.html. Accessed 08 Feb. 2025. Barnes, Julian. The Only Story. Jonathan Cape, 2018.
- Introduction | Character | Plot Summary | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 31 Jan 2022, https://youtu.be/46Lxx-C5Tg0?si=PTkqNdhioisd9Tdv
- "Joan | Character Study | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 3 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/st-w_099Yr0?si=OCoRA4CEEaHpXWq8
- "Memory Novel | Memory and History | Memory and Morality | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 2 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/H4yoNBCzrUs?si=Vxc5GQPJqnbOxsYE
- "Narrative Pattern | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 1 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/395rhgkig1w?si=mqvmqwWBRqOxByZ_
- "Question of Responsibility | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube3 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/uBj-ju4RuTo?si=LW1K02vT0oNaw2Fx
- "Theme of Love | Passion and Suffering | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 2 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/7f7hCKtGkGI?si=gCVaaKw0ksJAn4OY
- "Theme of Marriage | Critique of Marriage Institution | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 3 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/SCrSyV2jXzI?si=iLvkpeE_LlO67jpC
- "Two Ways to Look at Life | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 3 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/s7Wom7RAqI4?si=HIzHz0luge6GKnv8
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