Molloy by Samuel Beckett
"Molloy" is a novel by Samuel Beckett, first published in 1951, that explores themes of identity, memory, and existentialism through its fragmented narrative and complex characters. The story is divided into two parts, featuring two protagonists: Molloy and Jacques Moran. The first part centers on Molloy, who recounts his experience in his mother's room, where he has been brought after losing the ability to walk. He embarks on a quest to find his mother, which leads him to various encounters and a sense of entrapment, ultimately revealing his deteriorating physical and mental state.
The second part follows Jacques Moran, a meticulous and affluent man tasked with locating Molloy. As he navigates his own challenges, including an injury and a breakdown of family dynamics, Moran's journey becomes a reflection of despair and confusion. The narrative intertwines their experiences, illustrating the existential struggles inherent in human existence. Beckett's use of stream-of-consciousness and minimalist prose emphasizes the themes of alienation and the quest for meaning, inviting readers to engage with the philosophical questions raised by the characters' lives. Overall, "Molloy" stands as a significant work within Beckett's oeuvre and the broader context of modernist literature.
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Molloy by Samuel Beckett
First published: 1951 (English translation, 1955)
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Absurdist
Time of plot: Mid-twentieth century
Locale: Unnamed
Principal characters
Molloy , a derelict old manA andC , two men observed by MolloyLousse , an old widowJacques Moran , a man assigned to look for MolloyJacques Moran , Moran’s sonYoudi , Moran’s employerGaber , Youdi’s messenger
The Story:
Chapter 1. Molloy is in his mother’s room, having been brought there after he ceased to walk. He is obliged to write out the story of how he ended there under orders from a thirsty man who collects his pages once a week on Sundays. He remembers what happened to bring him to this room. He remembers that he had been on a hilltop from which he watched two men, A and C, walking toward each other along a country road. The two meet, exchange a few words, and then go their separate ways. It is after he watches this encounter that Molloy decides to go on a quest for his mother. With his crutches fastened to his bicycle, he sets off, but when he reaches the walls of his town, he is arrested and questioned by a hostile police officer.
After his release, Molloy feels unwell, wanders to the countryside, and then returns to the town, where he runs over a dog. The dog’s owner, an old widow, Lousse, decides to adopt Molloy as a replacement for her lost pet. Lousse causes Molloy to recall other love affairs, and he realizes they all remind him of his mother. Although Lousse gives him a haven in her garden, Molloy feels trapped and threatened, and he worries that Lousse is drugging his food. Having lost his bicycle, Molloy escapes Lousse’s house on his crutches. He wanders around, considers suicide, and then finds himself at the seaside, where he renews the stock of sucking stones that keep him from feeling hungry. He spends some time trying to devise a mathematical order for the carrying and sucking of the stones.
Molloy moves into a forest, but his progress becomes slower and slower as he gets more decrepit. He finds a charcoal burner in the forest, whom he assaults after the charcoal burner makes unwanted advances. No longer able to hobble, Molloy crawls and then sinks to the bottom of a ditch at the very edge of the forest. It is from this ditch that he is somehow rescued, brought to his mother’s room, and ordered to write his story.
Chapter 2. Jacques Moran is a fastidious man, a scrupulous Catholic, and an affluent householder. He has a subservient housekeeper named Martha and a closely monitored young son, Jacques. Moran is employed in an agency by a man named Youdi, who pays him to detect and track down certain individuals. It is Youdi who asks for the report about the events that begin one Sunday in the summer when Gaber, a thirsty agency messenger, comes to him with an urgent assignment. Moran is to leave at once with his son to look for a man named Molloy.
Disquieted and confused by these instructions, Moran rapidly becomes unwell. Not soon after starting out, he hurts his leg and sends his son to the nearest town to buy a bicycle. When a man with a stick approaches Moran, he gives him bread and breaks off a heavy stick for himself. The next day, another more respectable-looking man, who is looking for the man with the stick, approaches Moran. Moran clubs him to death. After being away for three days, his son returns with the bicycle; Moran and his son quarrel violently and the son abandons Moran. Then Gaber appears with an order for Moran to return home. By this time, Moran has deteriorated to such a degree that he is barely able to get home. He attempts to devise a mathematical order for the wearing of his shirt for his journey and grows even more decrepit, eventually finding it difficult to walk. He subsists on roots and berries and becomes such a suspicious character that a farmer accosts him and orders him off his land. When spring arrives, Moran finally returns home, but he finds the house deserted. He begins to write his report.
Bibliography
Abbott, H. Porter. The Fiction of Samuel Beckett: Form and Effect. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. Examines Beckett as a cunning literary strategist who wrote with an acute awareness of the effect his fiction had on readers. Includes a useful examination of the parallels in the two stories of Moran and Molloy.
Astro, Alan. Understanding Samuel Beckett. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990. Offers an accessible analysis of Molloy and suggests that incomprehensibility is one of the novel’s major themes. Includes a useful chronology and a brief bibliography of works up to 1988.
Ben-Zvi, Linda. Samuel Beckett. Boston: Twayne, 1986. Concludes that the fictive process is the novel’s central issue and is intimately connected to the novel’s quest motif. Includes a useful, simple summary of Molloy, a chronology, and a selected bibliography.
Cousineau, Thomas. After the Final No: Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999. Cousineau analyzes each of the three books in order of its respective publication, describing how in the course of the work Beckett demystifies each of the principal authority figures from whom Molloy has sought protection and guidance.
Fletcher, John. The Novels of Samuel Beckett. 2d ed. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1972. Important guide to Beckett’s fiction, tracing the evolution of the hero in his novels, and concluding that the question of identity is at the center of Beckett’s fiction. Includes a helpful analysis of Molloy, which Fletcher suggests is Beckett’s greatest work of fiction.
McDonald, Rónán. The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Beckett. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Chapter 4 of this concise overview of Beckett’s life and work includes a discussion of the trilogy that includes Molloy.
Pultar, Gönül. Technique and Tradition in Beckett’s Trilogy of Novels. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1996. Analyzes each of the three books in the order of publication, devoting a chapter to each. The chapter on Molloy views the protagonist as an alienated writer and a modern-day Everyman. Other chapters compare the three novels to other works of European literature and philosophy.
Rabinovitz, Rubin. Innovation in Samuel Beckett’s Fiction. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1992. Suggests that what seems baffling or purposeless in Beckett results from judiciously considered formal strategies. Posits that although the novels may seem chaotic and rambling, they are ingenious works of art that use repetition as a deliberate strategy to create structure and meaning.