In the article the author takes the context of the end of the century and examines how questions of endings play a significant part in human life. He buttresses his argument by referring to writers who have considered the importance of this temporal break both on the personal and on the social- historical level. The central part of the article deals with the topic of the representation of endings in the work of the Irish novelists Flann O'Brien and Samuel Beckett. According to his argument, regardless of the important ways the texts of these writers differ, both clearly show that the framework in which one is positioned has an immense influence on the way we negotiate the impact of endings. This insight enables the author to draw attention to what, in his opinion, is the specificity of twentieth century existence but, going by the knowledge which he finds inscribed in die Irsih texts, he makes it clear that he is well aware how pronouncements on endings might be no more than the discourse of a generation that feels the licking away of the biological clock.
