Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable: Analysis of Major Characters
"Molloy," "Malone Dies," and "The Unnamable" are seminal works by Samuel Beckett that explore themes of identity, existence, and the human condition through complex, often fragmented characters. In "Molloy," the titular character is a troubled writer who recounts his disjointed journey to reunite with his mother, reflecting on his ambiguous family ties and physical ailments. Jacques Moran, an agent sent to find him, embarks on a parallel quest filled with existential uncertainty and decay. Meanwhile, "Malone Dies" introduces Malone, an omniscient storyteller confined in an asylum, who grapples with his own mortality while imagining characters like Macmann, who struggle with their identities and circumstances.
The final work, "The Unnamable," features a disembodied voice wrestling with the essence of existence, questioning the nature of self and reality while trapped in an endless cycle of thought. Characters like Mahood and Worm emerge from this exploration, representing the fluidity of identity and the pursuit of self-awareness amidst the chaos of existence. Together, these narratives present a profound inquiry into the nature of being, memory, and the interplay between creator and creation, inviting readers to reflect on their own understanding of self and reality.
Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Samuel Beckett
First published: Molloy, 1951 (English translation, 1955); Malone meurt, 1951 (Malone Dies, 1956); L'Innommable, 1953 (The Unnamable, 1958)
Genre: Novels
Locale: Mostly indeterminate but including a hospital
Plot: Absurdist
Time: The 1940's or 1950's
Molloy, a one-eyed and toothless writer. In his mother's room near the slaughterhouse, Molloy wants to die, but first he must write. Although he does not write for money and seems incapable of spending it, he is paid by a man who visits him every Sunday. Despite having a faulty memory for names, Molloy writes an account of his quest to see his mother. He begins his quest on bicycle by pedaling with his good leg and propping the stiff one awkwardly on the front axle. As both legs stiffen, he becomes too crippled to pedal and uses his crutches as grappling hooks to pull himself into a ditch, from which he is rescued. An only son, Molloy believes that he may have had a son himself but is uncertain of his own family history.
Jacques Moran (zhahk moh-RAHN), the elder, an agent sent to find Molloy. Moran lives an ordered, complacent life among his possessions in the town of Turdy until he receives a message from his employer, Youdi, to locate Molloy. Moran's journey is filled with mysterious encounters, and he is forever uncertain of his way. His body begins to decay, and one leg stiffens with ankylosis, a pain that first appears while he is giving his son an enema. Moran carries more than a pound of keys in the right-hand pocket of his trousers, causing him to list to the right, and his hat is fastened under his chin by elastic. Moran dresses conspicuously in knickerbockers and boots and has but two teeth, incisors. Although he keeps chickens, game birds, and bees, Moran dislikes men and animals. He is disgusted by God even though he is a Catholic.
Jacques Moran, the younger, Moran's thirteen-year-old son, whom he constantly nags. Although big and strong for his age, Jacques sleeps with a woolly stuffed bear he calls Baby Jack. On their journey, Jacques is tied to his father by a rope until his father sends him to the town of Hole to procure a bicycle. Jacques collects stamps and wears a green school cap, and he carries a scout knife that his father gave him for his studies in history and geography.
Lousse, also called Sophie Loy, a woman whom Molloy meets while she is taking her aged dog, Teddy, to the veterinarian to be put out of his misery. Molloy accidentally kills the dog when he runs over him with his bicycle. Lousse takes in Molloy for a time after Teddy's death. When Molloy leaves, he steals a kniferest and silverware from her.
Edith, Molloy's repulsive mistress. Molloy encounters her in a rubbish dump and questions her name (she is also known as Ruth and Rose) and her gender. Crippled by rheumatism, she gives Molloy money after they have sex and dies taking a warm bath.
Gaber, the messenger who instructs Moran to begin his search for Molloy. Gaber's cryptic message also ends Moran's quest. Gaber wears a chestnut-colored mustache and dresses in his Sunday clothes and bowler hat.
Youdi, Moran and Gaber's unseen employer. His command to Gaber to find Molloy comes at night, as Gaber is about to have sex with his wife. Youdi has previously employed Molloy to undertake investigations.
Mag, Molloy's mother, an incontinent, deaf, and blind woman with whom Molloy communicates by tapping on her skull. Her toothless head is veiled with hair, wrinkles, filth, and slobber.
The charcoal burner, the victim of a brutal assault by Molloy. When he asks Molloy how to get out of the forest, Molloy savagely cracks the old man's skull with his crutch.
The dim man, a small, thickset man killed without provocation by Moran. The dim man wears a navy blue double-breasted suit, polished shoes, fancy socks, suspenders, and a narrow-brimmed dark blue felt hat with a fishhook and lure in its band. He has a long, fringed muffler around his neck and an abortive mustache above his thin, red mouth.
Malone, a toothless, old, omniscient storyteller confined to an asylum cell, where he waits to die. Malone lives in a kind of coma and has no notion of the room he inhabits. He plans to fill his time by telling himself four stories—one each about a man, a woman, a thing (probably a stone), and an animal (probably a bird). His narration, however, is primarily about a character named Macmann, to whom he may be related and who gradually moves into the cell and takes over his identity. Malone believes himself an octogenarian but cannot prove his age; although he knows the date of his birth, he is uncertain of the current year. Although he claims to have spent much of his life walking, his legs and feet seem far away and are unresponsive to his brain's commands. A tall man with knowledge of the stars, Malone dreams of his own death, having become increasingly paralyzed to the point that he no longer can move his big, shaggy head. Malone's ears have tufts of hair, yellowed by wax and lack of care, so long that his lobes are hidden. Malone lies naked in bed, never washing because he does not get dirty. He has bad vision and poor hearing, and he once was cared for by a nameless woman who fed him soup every day. His only possessions are a yellow boot with many eyeholes, a brimless hat, a needle stuck in a piece of cork, and a broken tobacco pipe, all of which he controls by a stick hooked at the end. He eventually loses his stick as well as his exercise book and pencil, a green nub with a lead that he sharpens with his fingernails.
Macmann, a fictional character invented by Malone, born with the name Saposcat. He is created sitting on a bench in town but, like Malone, ends in an asylum, where he spies on a copulating couple and carries on an affair with his haggish nurse, Moll. A little silver kniferest is the only item of value found in his pockets. Childless and earthy, Macmann worked as a street sweeper before his incarceration in the House of Saint John of God, where he is given the identity of 166. Every Saturday, he is given a plug of tobacco and a half pint of porter. Occasionally, he escapes from the asylum, but because he always hides in the same location, he is easily captured and returned. Macmann sometimes dreams of himself as a great cylinder endowed with intellect and will.
Saposcat, an earnest and precocious schoolboy. Although he seems constantly engaged in mental arithmetic, he is not good at his lessons. The eldest child of poor and sickly parents, Sapo is nevertheless healthy and athletic and engages in boxing, wrestling, and running. Sapo is transmogrified by Malone into the aged and reptilian Macmann.
Moll, the small, elderly nurse in charge of Macmann in the asylum. She wears crucifix earrings, and one canine tooth, bared to its roots, is carved to honor the crucifixion as well. Understanding and sympathetic, she gives Macmann a daguerreotype of herself on her fourteenth birthday and teaches him to exalt love. Moll is subject to fits of vomiting, and her hair begins to fall out.
Lemuel (leh-MYEWL), the male nurse who replaces Moll, after Moll's death, as Macmann's caretaker. A sadistic character, Lemuel beats Macmann and hits himself in the head with a hammer and later a hatchet. Lemuel butchers two sailors employed to take his asylum group for a picnic excursion to an island. He then forces the other fictions into the boat and sets them to sea.
Big Lambert, the father of the Lambert clan. Big Lambert marries his young cousin, his fourth or fifth marriage, and delights in the seasonal slaughter of pigs. Toothless, Big Lambert employs a cigarette holder when he smokes. His son, a great, strapping lad, likewise has terrible teeth.
Lady Pedal, a fat woman who sponsors the picnic to the island. Artificial daisies bloom on her broad-brimmed straw hat above her plump, red face.
Jackson, a friend whose memory haunts Malone. Jackson thinks Malone is disgusting. He owns a pink and gray parrot, which he has taught to say “Nihil in intellectu.”
The Unnamable, an unnamed disembodied voice seeking evidence of his own existence. He wonders if he has lived, will live, or does live. The Unnamable theorizes that he was born of a wet dream in Bally, and he has no body, only syntax. Because he feels occasional pressure on his rump and the soles of his feet, however, he believes he might be seated, perhaps in a crouched posture, hands on knees. He cannot move and is unable to blink or close his eyes, though he weeps. He sees only what is in front of him. He doubts that he even casts a shadow but cannot turn his head to see. Believing himself to be round and hard, he variously describes himself as an egg and as a big talking ball. If he moves at all, he surmises that he moves in orbits or cycles that return him to his original place, thereby making verification of his movement impossible. His existence depends on words and presumably will cease when his narrative is done. His monologue is a compulsive babble in which he vaguely remembers having been other characters and decides that he will be someone called Mahood, then Worm. He has no sex, no possessions, and no biography. He is trapped in time and space and becomes what he creates, for his life is solely the words he utters. He is essentially a mind in search of itself and is preoccupied with his own self-knowledge, although he despairs of knowing anything except in words.
Mahood, a lump who inhabits a jar outside a Paris restaurant opposite a horsemeat shop in the Rue Brancion. In the jar, Mahood seems suspended between life and death, and his only function appears to be as a display for the daily menu. Taken out once a week by the proprietress of the chophouse, he shrinks and sinks lower in the jar as she fills its bottom with sawdust. His head is covered with pustules and bluebottle flies and is shaded by a tarpaulin. Mahood is unable to move his head, for around his neck is a cement ring, a collar fixed to the mouth of the jar and encircling his neck just below the chin. He is able, however, to catch flies with his mouth. Before inhabiting the jar, Mahood returns from a tour abroad to visit his wife, parents, and eight or nine offspring. He discovers his family dead of sausage poisoning, their bodies decomposing. He travels on crutches because he has but one leg and a homologous arm. Mahood is half deaf and has a poor memory. Growing increasingly armless and legless, Mahood is transformed into Worm.
Worm, an amorphous consciousness evolved from Mahood. Worm is concerned primarily with probing his wormlike state. Worm is not clearly distinguishable from Mahood, because both are but manifestations of the Unnamable's desire for awareness.
Marguerite (mahr-geh-REET), also called Madeleine (mahd-LEHN), the caretaker of the jar. Every Sunday, she rids Mahood of excrement and rubs salt into his scalp. Perhaps because of her kindness, Mahood wonders if he might be related to her. Marguerite adorns his jar with colorful Chinese lanterns.
Basil (BA-zihl), a detested fiction of the Unnamable who is rebaptized as Mahood. The thought of Basil's face fills the Unnamable with hatred.
Malone, a figure seen in profile only from the waist up as he passes by the Unnamable. Although Malone is recognizable by his brimless hat and beard that hangs down in two twists of equal length, the Unnamable questions Malone's true identity.