Literary Techniques’ Power in Treating Life’s Absurdity, Regarding Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy [1 ed.]

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Dedication ..........................................................................................................................III
Acknowledgment............................................................................................................... IV
Abstract............................................................................................................................... V
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................VII
Introduction..........................................................................................................................1
Chapter One:Literary Technique’ Analisys in Trilogy....................................................6
Chapter Two: Minimalism and Anti-novel in Trilogy ...................................................53
Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................67
Works Cited........................................................................................................................69

Citation preview

University of Tabriz Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages Department of English Language and Literature

The thesis is Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English Language and Literature

Title Literary Techniques’ Power in Treating Life’s Absurdity, Regarding Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy

Supervisor Dr. Pouralifard, Akram

Advisor Dr. Sabouri, Hussein

Researcher Shuhaib, Mahdi Hussein Abbood

December 2020

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This work is dedicated to those watchful eyes of my mother, and that industrious heart of my father. I would like to dedicate it to my patient wife and sons as well.

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Acknowledgment My great supervisor Dr. Pouralifard, it’s fair to thank you for all of your patience and hospitality, in evaluating and adjusting my knowledge. All the gratitude to my admirable advisor Dr. Sabouri. Bundle of thanks to Dr. Ameri Dr. Massiha for sharing their knowledge with us over all these years.

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Surname: Shuhaib

Name: Mahdi Hussein Abbood

Thesis Title: Literary Techniques’ Power in Treating Life’s Absurdity, Regarding Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy Supervisor(s): Dr. Pouralifard, Akram Advisor(s): Dr. Sabouri, Hussein Degree: Master of Arts Major: English Language Field: Literature University: Tabriz Faculty: Persian Literature and Foreign Languages Graduation Date: Pages: 80 Keywords: Absurdism, Minimalism, Modernism, Anti-novel, Literary Techniques. Abstract Literature is a machine working to express ideas, thoughts, theories, and feelings. The products of the machine, the literary genres, are of different shapes and lengths. The tools of the machine are literary techniques without which literature may not make any sense. Such a perspective necessitated this research to investigate the power of literary techniques in implying a certain point of view i.e., ‘Absurdity of life’. The ironical and satirical constructs explicating this theme in Samuel Beckett’s trilogy, which aims at the implication of a certain concept of life after WWII, are the foci of this thesis. The researcher, furthermore, has tried to connect the dots between the work itself and the general concept of minimalism, alongside the notion of ‘Anti-novel’. This thesis uses the theory of Formalism as an opposition to Romanticism and Marxism. Formalism mainly reads the text closely; to manifest the contradictory meanings of this text. It simply means to discover the beyond-

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existence origins. This thesis attempts at depicting the power of literary techniques used in Beckett’s trilogy as a descriptive analysis approach. A close reading of the text is done explicate the symbolic manifestations of absurdity. As the main finding of this study which draws on analyzing the satirical and ironical tone of the work, Beckett is not in opposition of life and its creator but abhors the systems which inflicted this absurdity upon life and made it meaningless and threadbare.

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Table of Contents

Dedication .......................................................................................................................... III Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................... IV Abstract ............................................................................................................................... V Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. VII Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One:Literary Technique’ Analisys in Trilogy.................................................... 6 Chapter Two: Minimalism and Anti-novel in Trilogy ................................................... 53 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 67 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................ 69

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Introduction The needs of human beings have forced them to apply touchable variations to the world. Due to the chronological formation of thoughts and theories, literature was one of the most effective variations in this life. Many provocative questions might have been raised by writers throughout their works about the current life. Some of these questions are intentionally raised by the author and some were perceived by critics. The relationship between literature and other human traits, like wars, revolutions, political issues, and decisions, is a reciprocal one. Each has been influenced by the other. Among other creations, Art is commonly acknowledged to be created when the artist is under the strain of interrogative pressure. For a long time, Wars have always affected writers and authors in all literary genres, especially fictional works. Wars have generally been a testimony to chaos and corruption, which in turn, have been influential on all systems of societies and governments. This has led to some kind of uncertainty and people started questioning the goal of life. This uncertainty was caused by constantly shifting values and traditions. It forced intellectuals, like Beckett to metamorphose at each instant into new beings, who in turn, struggled to create meaning through language. Critics considered that the most creative period of Beckett's literary career was from 1947 until his death. A Beckettian hero rejects the silent freedom, particularly in Beckett’s trilogy. The paradoxes which always attack Beckett's thoughts have led critics to interpret his potential both comically and tragically. Esslin wrote that Beckett used to avoid all personal errors, expecting each member of his readers to draw his conclusion, making his errors. (Esslin XVI) An imperative goal of Beckett’s works is to expose the ultimate absurdity of life. Many studies condensed the theatrical performance of Samuel Beckett, but this study, at variance, sails into the literary techniques’ ocean, which he used in these controversial novels. Beckett

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had a strong intention to continue his investigation about human fate. The words of every hero in Beckett's trilogy summarize the attitude of both Beckett as an individual and each of his characters as another individual towards the human condition. Bastable asserts that the suffering of waiting which can be touchable in Molloy's situation is the same as what was interpreted in Waiting for Godot, but as another type of genre. (35) By tracing the sequence of literary works before global disasters, especially WWII, critics have noticed the lack of human ethics caused by depravity, poverty, and hunger, which found reflection in literary works. These works have been introduced by authors who have experienced those disasters or felt sympathetic towards the affected people. The incredible apocalyptic thoughts, which have been introduced in such works, under the impact of the crisis, following the war, have tried to sketch the end of the world in Beckett’s opinion. The loss of hope and feeling of absurdity in western society caused by the crises initiated by WWII address the problem of this thesis. The researcher aims to analyze the quotations describing the different affections of literary techniques that gave this power to words. How can we explain that fictional art can loom this despair through paradoxical fiction? Many writers have scrutinized the apocalyptic sensation and the loss of identity in postmodern literary works that address the pessimistic vantage point on human salvation. This study aims to analyze the sides of human being’s weaknesses and disbeliefs, depicted through the power of fictional language, and literary techniques in Beckett’s trilogy which is a representation of his idealism. The way Becket utilizes these techniques in his trilogy to highlight the plight of man after WWII is the focal point of this investigation. The significance of this study lies in the fact that the perspective from which it aims to study Beckett’s trilogy is a different one. It examines the power of language and its efficacy in depicting the sense of absurdity in the postmodern mind, which led him to act paradoxically. 2

The postmodern man came to question doctrines and traditions. This evanescence of life’s meaning is associated with the loss of faith, the disappearance of sacramental habits and superstitions. But this despair and degradation are needful to accomplish innovation. (Esslin 50). This descriptive study will demonstrate the researcher’s judgment as analytical criticism. From what has been introduced above, the researcher may tend to ask some questions, which can be a seductive tool to complete this investigation. First, what are the samples of human disbelief in salvation in the post-WWII era regarding the trilogy’s quotations? The answer to this question may reveal the true face of Beckett’s theory about absurdity. The second question is, how did Beckett treat reality’s absurdity through literary techniques? It acts as a brief visualization of the idea of salvation in Beckett’s vision. The third question is, can we consider Beckett as a minimalist at his early life due to the style he uses in this trilogy? The investigation of this question will help us to judge whether this trilogy marks the beginning of Beckett as a minimalist, or not. A host of critics and researchers have directed studies on absurdity and its significance in post-modern literary works. Hirth, in her Absurdity and Artistry in Twentieth-Century American War Literature, argued that absurdity is a more constructive tool for investigating authors’ artistic and stylistic portraits of war particularly in the second half of the twentieth century. She mentioned that absurd fictions contain comic exaggeration, parody, black humor, surrealism, the fantastic, and a general subversion of the traditional novel’s form. Hirth, however, is silent about the optimistic side of this fiction that is a focal point of the present study. On another hand, Humphreys, in his thesis entitled Apocalyptic Narratives in the Postmodern Novel, demonstrates the close relationship between the apocalyptic sense and Postmodernism through society's concern throughout history. While Babalola, in her Absurd Realism in Postmodern American fiction: Wallace, Pynchon, and Tomasula, illustrates how the features of absurd realism portray a postmodern world pervaded by boredom and chaos but 3

never gave any attention to literary techniques, or Beckett’s trilogy. In his thesis Towards a Postmodern Absurd: The Fiction 4 of Joseph Heller, Grayson examines the entirety of Joseph Heller's career as a novelist and explores the various existential themes uniting a seemingly diverse body of work. As the former writer, he investigated absurdity in the postmodern era but did not give any reference to Beckett’s trilogy. Atkins stated in her Aspect of the Absurd in Modern Fiction; with a Special Reference to Under the Volcano and Catch-22 that these novels warn against the interpretation of a doctrine for universal salvation, and this will issue a positive challenge to the individual to the modern world. All these expressions said and introduced by these researchers and scholars were interesting and worthy, but no one shed a light on the power of artistic language and literary techniques usage in portraying and answering questions about uncertainty under the frame of absurdity. As a qualitative study, its nature tends to be a fusion between description and analysis. A descriptive study was carried out to identify the absurd samples in the trilogy and an analytic study was carried out to critically evaluate Beckett’s treatment of absurdity. By relying on the minimalist approach, the researcher tries to answer the research questions according to the views of postmodern theory. Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable can be the clearest joint between Minimalism and Absurdism. The research will also investigate the images of absurdity, hopelessness, and aimlessness in the trilogy by quoting the important sentences from the original text and mention some contemporaneous philosophers under the frame of Absurdism. Excluding the introduction and the conclusion, this research consists of two chapters. The first chapter investigates the role of literary techniques in performing controversial quotations in exposing the idea of chaos and absurdity in Beckett’s trilogy. The second chapter explores the literary theories that may be applied to these 3 fictions and how literary techniques helped to sketch the interpretation from the perspective of the postmodern reader. 4

The problem with this study is the limitation of the secondary sources. The process of the study exemplified by the reference to the literary techniques limits the researcher to the language and it does not let him consider the cultural background. As an analytical type of study, it cannot deal intensively with comparisons between thoughts, styles, theories, or figures between two different works just like comparative studies. Studying a trilogy collected in one book is a big challenge, and it will limit the researcher to only one main resource, novel genre, and absurdity as a theory. The researcher’s mission is to look at this trilogy from a very tight angle based on literary techniques and their power to treat life’s absurdity as a minimalist. The researcher will apply a critical discussion to the context of the trilogy. Minimalism: is simply a matter of clearing away the superfluous to concentrate closely on artistic essence: “Art excludes the unnecessary. (Motte 9) Hopelessness: is the loss of ego autonomy due to one’s own inability to provide oneself with gratification. (O’Neil & Akhtar 10) Absurd: “according to philosophy, it’s the confrontation of irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart”. (Camus 15)

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Chapter One Literary Technique’ Analysis in Trilogy Introduction Words of daily life are said to be meaningful, to create a request, to fulfill a desire, or for other reasons. This language links peoples. It eases communication. however, we call it ‘Dialogue’. If you were saying words to no one, whether they were structurally arranged or not, this ‘no one’ will be yourself, and they might be useless. But what if you put them down on a paper as fiction? In contrast to human communication, these words do nothing but sleep between lines until put to work by the reader. This work will be variant in intensity from one agent to another. These words must work and achieve the goal of their creator so that he can convey whatever he wants, which can ultimately make a change in the reader’s mind. Modern fiction lies deep in the ocean of monologue. The reader may face a novel with 90% monologue and 10% narrative without any dialogue. Many of these fictions depend on what you have interpreted and received, not on what is written or narrated. In Beckett's Endgame, both Clov and Hamm listen to a clock alarm after winding it up. When it stops, both have a comic and confusing comment on it. Clove says: “The end is terrific!”. (Beckett, Endgame 48). From another point of view, Hamm replies: “I prefer the middle.” (48) This dialogue is comic because the clock alarm is not a piece of a variant intonational masterpiece. It was an indistinguishable sound that was to be regarded as music. The confusing part of this dialogue is that everything is the same; how can man’s mind think of beginnings or endings in such situations? It may come from people’s different perspectives; the effectiveness of human hopes and illusions pulls them to imagine that the middle differs from the end. Perhaps, it represents their need for ‘ends’. That expresses the thriller sense that people have been living in a perpetual middle with no end. 6

This sense was reflected in many of Beckett’s works. They cried for an ending, preparing a revolution in artistic movements at the same time. These kinds of writing show us the essence of the Ego. In his introduction to Beckett’s trilogy, Gabriel Josipovici mentioned that Beckett’s incurable passion for writing made him feel guilty. He tastes the bitterness of the sin against the world. His early works like Dream of Fair to Middling Women, and More Pricks than Kicks might easily be mistaken for academic humor and irony. But they have a strong self-critical edge. Every good writer resorts to literary devices or what we will call here ‘literary techniques’ in his works, both intentionally and unintentionally. The writer may use them for more emphasis, or to shed a light on a specific event happening during the story, or even to create a clean environment, which can strongly connect the audience to the theme. This chapter aims to show the use of literary techniques in Beckett’s trilogy and to indicate the mechanism through which it has tried to inculcate its prominence in the readers’ minds in other works from the same era and literary school.

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Section One 1.1. Molloy Siebenschuh insists on questioning the factual works in the old classic fictions such as Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Gosse’s Father and Son, which were both written in the 19th century. They have a remarkable impact on historical facts and some fictional power. Schizophrenically, the critical treatment of these works reflects the belief that their literary dimension is separable from their factual substance. These works were acknowledged to be artistically important, and they still carry historical liabilities. According to Siebenschuh, the excessive use of literary techniques that called the attention of the authors themselves might incline the reader’s response or weaken the historical credibility. One of the most unique features of modern works is to avoid the falsification of traditional-age such as the deification of facts, specifically in Beckett’s works, despite his excessive use of fine techniques. A critic might find the use of literary techniques in Beckett’s works to be strengthening the historical impact on the facts of life, for which I will provide more shreds of evidence in the coming sections. The chronological order of this chapter for analyzing the data of the selected works will be as the following: it will begin with Molloy, then Malone Dies, and finally, The Unnamable. This part aims to pick up and discuss important literary techniques used in each novel, depending on its role in giving rhetorical impact and factual truth about human suffering and absurdity. The short well-organized Molloy seems to suggest a kind of bafflement to the reader, introducing him to an aimless and faithless protagonist. When the reader gets to the end of this story, he rarely finds himself informed of what happened, and how he got there, exactly like

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Molloy who does not remember many things at the beginning of the novel. Molloy is the narrator and the hero who shares with us absurd stories in an absurd way. And I am perhaps confusing several different occasions, and different times, deep down, and deep down is my dwelling, oh not deepest down, somewhere between the mud and the scum. And perhaps it was A one day at one place, then C another at another, then a third the rock and I, and so on for the other components…. And I sure I never saw them again? And what do I mean by seeing and seeing again? An instant of silence, as when the conductor taps on his stand, raises his arms, before the unanswerable clamour. Smoke, sticks, flesh, hair, at evening, afar, flung about the craving for a fellow. (14-15) Shall we ask or wonder whom Molloy has met, A or C? Kenner comments on this quote, that it is a meaningless question. The character might be identified according to his relationship to another, only if the narrator himself asserts that. But what if this narrator was the character himself, I mean Molloy? Beckett is manipulating our inclination to make us forget that we are dealing with fiction, not fact, and he reminds us of factual truths of suffering recurrently. One of the most important literary techniques used in Molloy and other works is “the NarratorNarrated” in terms of Kenner. It represents a new style of bringing the ambient atmosphere into existence so that this novel has no omniscient narrator. The reader feels as if he is sitting inside smith’s mind, struggling to create reality, however, people are far from having a fixed mind. The aim of planting the uncertainty inside the readers’ minds is to put less emphasis on style and to focus on the uncertain mental process. Let’s call it the style of dissipating the style. The sketch of Molloy is deceitfully natural. He resolves to see his mother even though he hates her. He was mistakenly arrested by the police while he was on his bike. This shows us how events are happening absurdly in both, factual and narrative worlds simultaneously. Molloy is not sure about the gender of the woman called Mrs. Lousse, whom he met after running over her dog. He sometimes thinks that she is a man with long hair. Why does she invite him to her house on this occasion? After biding in her house for a while, he leaves the house alone abandoning his bicycle. Losing interest in seeking his mom, he wanders with

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physical pain, shortening of a leg, arthritis in wrists, and overall body disintegration. Then, he starts to crawl to reach a ditch where he will spend the night immobile. Some critics consider this as a comic scene. But the situation above may allegorically refer to soldiers’ suffering, during the war, which was synchronous to the time this novel was written. The voice comes from nowhere: "Don’t fret Molloy, we’re coming." (91) might be a natural hallucination and it’s very important to represent the soldiers’ miserable situation when no one helps them and are left bleeding until death. Molloy’s ignorance of what was happening represents people’s unawareness. The second part of the novel revolves around a person called Moran Jacques, who becomes the narrator. He seems to be a detective. He resolves to find Molloy, but who is Molloy? On the second page of the first part, Molloy predicts that he has a son: "But I think not. He would be old now, nearly as old as myself …It seems to me sometimes that I even knew my son, that I helped him." (7) One similarity can be detected, both have sons Molloy and Moran, and both names beginning with ‘Mo’ can be noted as another similarity. During the overflow of their narration, Molloy and Moran are capable of versing poetry. It seems like Moran is the young Molloy. Moran’s life is the early stage of Molloy’s life. The two parts of the novel might have been chronologically switched. When the messenger of the unknown organization comes to Moran, he hands him a note of instructions. After reading this note, he refuses to do accordingly. The reader is given no information about the details of the note. However, later on, he understands that it has an order to apprehend someone called Molloy. Molloy was not a mischievous person that needed to be detained but it is necessary to mention that no one of the characters introduced in the novel is pleased with his social status. One cannot see any kind of freedom, neither in the character's quotes nor in their behaviors.

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Searching about someone worth nothing for no reason, to the interest of an unknown beneficiary, is absurdity itself. "He wants it to be you, God knows why, said Gaber." (94). Kenner gave a very good interpretation of Gaber’s name. Gaber is the name of the messenger, and it seems to have its root in Greek angelos. Angelos meaning messenger and the name shows a self-sameness with God’s archangel Gabriel. Beckett uses this technique exactly like the hints of a detective story format to impart a sense of near-familiarity, and near-intelligibility to the narrative. (Kenner 97) The physical disintegration that Moran reaches at the end of the novel is approximately the same as Molloy’s. He undergoes pains, loses his only son, loses property, including his bees, hens’ death, and finally, he forsakes the deserted house. All of these events as well as walking with crutches, lying on the ground, and crawling, remind us of Molloy. As if the events are repeated to join the end with the beginning, and indeed, the end equals the beginning, as introduced in the introduction of this chapter. As already mentioned, Beckett’s works necessitate the endings to cut this perpetual circle of events, and he certainly is pleased to put his reader in a challenge of deriving meaning. Moran corresponds with Molloy, a man he meets. The man had a heavy coat, striking hat, stick, and a huge shock of dirty white hair. He was destitute and old. Was he C? If we make a comparison between this man and Molloy’s descriptions, we will find differences. This man resembles Moran’s conjecture of Molloy. But if we return to the first part of the novel, Molloy did not meet someone that resembled Moran. So, this anticipation was inaccurate because Moran meets another man thereafter, who was looking for an old man with a stick. Moran wonders if he was looking for the old man who resembles Molloy. He looks like a detective just like him! He kills this man. All of these events might match the claim that Moran is Molloy himself but in his youth. Also, he killed the man who might have been looking for Molloy. This oddity can conclude the perfect use of the narrative style by Beckett, to make the reader 11

question and interpret by himself. It seems to be Beckett’s geniality that makes the investigation about his works open for the scholars and critics to interpret until the present time. Kenner claims that Moran’s murder of the other detective was the most perfunctory in literature commenting on this quote: “He thrust his hand at me… I do not know what happened then. But a little later, perhaps a long time later, I found him stretched on the ground, his head in a pulp. I am sorry I cannot indicate more clearly how this result was obtained; it would have been something worth reading." (151) because it happens in the interval between two sentences which indicates the superficiality of the expression, as Kenner asserts. (Kenner 99) Moran as well as Beckett, does not care much for this murder, because he mentions: "I am sorry I cannot indicate more clearly how this result was obtained, it would have been something worth reading. But it is not at this late stage of my relation that I intend to give way to literature."(151) 1.1.1 Allegory From what Quinn defines Allegory is: "A type of narrative in which the surface story reflects at least one other meaning." (19) Molloy may readily be considered as an allegorical work as it carries many references to reality. Astro confirms this allegorical nature of Moran’s narration: Moran’s narrative functions not only as an allegory of Molloy’s as the Old Testament functions as an allegory of the New; it also serves as an allegory of our own attempt to read Molloy’s narrative. For just as we must figure out from Molloy’s ramblings what he is trying to say, so Moran attempts to interpret Molloy on the basis of scanty information. (65) Sheringham adds that Moran falls under the dominance of that great twentieth-century ideal of spiritual inwardness, the unconsciousness, which represents the allegory of the psyche’s discovery of its depths. (Sheringham 66)

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Molloy allegorically resembles man before the war, before he tastes the suffering and miserable chaos in the post-war era. Despite oddities happening in his narrative, he has killed no one, he is not sure whether he has a son or not, and many simple aspects of life are regular in his actions. These aspects represent the simplicity of life before world crises exactly as those found in the preceding school of the 19th century. Moran resembles the chaotic soul who is a new version of a human being living in bafflement in an absolute absurdity. He is a detective looking for someone he has neither seen nor knows. Moran looks for Molloy, his future representative, to arrest or perhaps to kill him. He has a son with whom he has never been pleased. "My son is sleeping. Let him sleep. The night will come when he too, unable to sleep, will get up and go to his desk." (92) A reader might easily determine what Moran intends to convey. It’s obscurely an absurd world because his son does not even have a clear name. To support our claim that Moran is Molloy himself, we should refer to some parts of the narrative from the perspective of age. Molloy, the old version of Moran is the old manifestation of a man who appears in the first part of the novel, and Moran who is the new generation comes last. This role-switch between the two chronologically shifted parts is patently one of the postmodern techniques to create purport which makes the novel an allegorical one at all levels. 1.1.2 Allusion Allusion according to Quinn is a reference within a literary text to some person, place, or event outside the text (20), and the allusions referring to events more or less contemporary with the text are called topical allusions and those referring to specific people are personal allusions. Concerning Molloy, Sheringham thinks that the multiplicity of allusions’ use tends to dilute and weaken the mythic atmosphere instead of strengthening it. It is the use of a highly eclectic approach that interprets the text in a group of mythic components. For example, Christian or Jungian writers have to avoid or turn the blind eye to a lot of aspects of the novel, which might be unsuitable to Modernism (12). The major characteristic of modern works for 13

Sheringham, is their highly intertextual quality, and this is what Beckett applies to his works. Allusion stems from the author’s sense of a loss of the cohesive explanatory system_ religious or scientific, for example. Sheringham is elaborate on the function of allusion as reflecting fragmentation by using fragmentation itself, meaning to unite these fragments into a new coherent system (81). Obidil seems to be used in the novel to refer to God as he is portrayed as one impossible to see: "And with regard to the Obidil, of whom I Have refrained from speaking, until now, and whom I so longed to see face to face, all I can say with regard to him is this, that I never saw him, either face to face or darkly, perhaps there is no such person, that would not greatly surprise me." (162) This reflects the obsession of absurd world in Beckett’s ego. The word Obidil corresponds exactly with the mirror image of “libido” the sexual desire. He reflects Moran’s repression against lust. The name “Obidil” has a religious dimension representing the punishing father, who teaches his son to abominate the body. (Astro 66) According to Webb, religion is still significant for Moran and he finds himself preoccupied with theological questions on his way home. This mental engagement is revealed meaningfully in his question, “What was God doing with himself before the creation?" (167), and more vulgarly, in the French text:"Que foutait Dieu avant la creation?" (259). And as Webb puts it, some of these questions raise frustration and disappointment toward the God of formal religion (101). Youdi in Molloy might have been used allusively which ostentatiously is a play on “dieu” the French word of God and Gaber, Similarly, may be an allusion to the archangel Gabriel, the messenger of God. 1.1.3 Anaphora According to Quinn, anaphora is a figure of speech in which a word or words are repeated, usually at the beginning of successive sentences or lines of verse (23) and Beckett 14

had excessive use of the pronoun “I” at the beginning of a considerable sum of sentences in Molloy: I am in my mother's room…I don't know how I got there…I was helped. I'd never have got there alone… I mean enough to bury. I don't know… I sleep in her bed. I piss and shit in her pot. I have taken her place. I must resemble her more and more… I've forgotten it again… I've forgotten how to spell too, … I began at the beginning, like an old ballock, can you imagine that? … I took a lot of trouble with it…. I don't know... I don't know. (7-8) The repeated “I”, in the initial position of successive sentences, selected from the two beginning pages of the book, may be justified for two reasons. Firstly, it tries to make the reader imagine himself in the situation of the narrator, i.e., to shorten the effort of having a clear overview of the novel in a minimum number of sentences, i.e., the excessive use of “I” may save a lot of detailed information that might have been conveyed later on. The second reason seems to be for emphasizing the deteriorated lack of self-esteem or self-confidence of the unfaithful individuals. Barry argues that the written “I” is a different entity from the spoken “I” and it appears to be more conventional and fictional than all other pronouns and subjects. As Barry reminds us, there is a certain credit on the part of the reader in being addressed as “you”, and in being part of the directness that a first-person pronoun signifies. Another instance of anaphoric use in Molloy is the use of “Yes” initially in two successive sentences: ‘Yes, it's all easy when you know why, a mere matter of magic. Yes, the whole thing is to know what saint to implore, any fool can implore him."(27) As if Molloy is minimalizing or criticizing the supernatural elements mentioned in myths such as Homer’s Odyssey. The repetition of “yes” here delivers an artistic effect as well as the emphasis it serves for. "Yes papa, he said. Yes, papa! Ah!" (99) A different use of anaphora comes for emphasis and exclamation when Moran is surprised for his son’s obedient treatment of him.

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The anaphoric “but” and its role in showing absurdity throughout the text enjoys an exclusive significance: "But even lost they will have their place, in the inventory of my possessions. But I am easy in my mind, I shall not lose them." (14) By insisting upon choosing ‘but’ over ‘however’, the common usage, the writer ostensibly, tries to show that the contrast of something was previously mentioned which contributes to the absurd tone of the dialogue by creating the disturbance to the cohesion of the narration: "But perhaps I shall see them again. But shall I be able to recognize them?" (15). The above quotations, however are likely to add an aesthetic intonation to the text. The successive occurrence of “But” in "But I shall not always be in need. But talking of the craving for a fellow let me observe that having waked between eleven o'clock and midday (I heard the angelus, recalling the incarnation, shortly after) I resolved to go and see my mother." (15) and the former paragraph comes to establish a uniform to the text. This succession acts as a theme. It gives different meanings with the same rhythm. At the beginning of the second sentence, it gives the meaning of “only” as if he says “But I shall not always be in need. Only for talking of the craving...”. (15) But I will listen no longer, for the time being, to that far whisper, for I do not like it, I fear it. But it is not a sound like the other sounds, that you listen to, when you choose, and can sometimes silence, by going away or stopping your ears, no, but it is a sound which begins to rustle in your head, without your knowing how, or why… But I felt they were far away. But this feeling was based on nothing serious, it was a simple feeling. (40-65) In contrast to its meaning, the anaphoric “but”s serve to continue the overflowing of narration and deliver the theme of connection. It also adds information to what has already been introduced, and so it also means “and” in the two pairs of successive sentences above. As this research is a qualitative study, it does not permit more instances of anaphoric words and phrases from the main source. In contrast to the quantitative studies that were

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introduced, it is enough and serves to give the aesthetic aspect of using Anaphora in Molloy as a thematic literary technique. 1.1.4 Anthropomorphism Anthropomorphism refers to personification, Quinn defines it as:" A figure of speech in which human qualities are attributed to an inanimate or abstract entity." (318) In Molloy, Anthropomorphism occurs one time only. "And I thought above all of their dance, for my bees danced, oh not as men dance to amuse themselves, but in a different way." (168) Here, Moran provides a human feature to an animal which is a bee. The significance of making bees dancing perhaps comes to talk about the human miserable condition. Moran enjoys his contemplating the bees dance it is the way it insults human relentless, savage, and merciless behavior. Bees might represent the misery of innocent human individuals in a chaotic absurd world. (Sheringham 65) 1.1.5 Colloquialism Cuddon defines colloquialism as a word, phrase or expression to be used in everyday speech and writing and adds that the colloquial style is plain and relaxed (126). The use of colloquial words, moreover, appends a casual and relaxing effect to the text and Molloy’s use of colloquial words in his narrative makes him more lifelike and closer to express people’s squalor. By using the word “dear”, to mean expensive for instance, in "What else, ah yes, carobs, so dear to goats "(85), he employs the informal style to create an intimate tone. For another example of colloquial style, I will turn to the word ‘Bravo’ in Molloy: “The bicycle swayed, righted itself, gained speed. Bravo! I cried, beside myself with joy." (157) It was also used in another sentence "I stopped when I could go no further and I said, Bravo, that makes so many tens, so many more than yesterday." (165) it means congratulations to me by this end, counting ten steps just like what Molloy did yesterday is not a progressive situation, 17

however, he tries to increase the count of steps to reach fifty steps per stop, and this use of ‘Bravo’ might release the dissatisfaction of Molloy with his progression. The use of borrowed words in a work of literature reflects the multicultural author, writing for a universal audience not for single society. 1.1.6 Epistrophe Epistrophe or epiphora is the counterpart of anaphora, which contributes to weaving the absurd texture of the novel. In this figure of speech, as Cuddon asserts, each sentence or clause ends with the same word (234), and this figurative language is utilized effectively in Molloy to evoke an emotional response from the reader, or to deliver the most emphatic meaning at the closing part of the sentence: "Resting, I said. Resting, he said. Resting, I said." (20) perhaps. "Go on, he said. Listen, I said. Get on, he said." (21) … "I could do with another beer, he said. Go to the kitchen, I said, the maid will serve you. Goodbye, Moran, he said… And the man? I said. What man? she said. The man who came for a glass of beer, I said." (95-97) The following examples, differently, serve for emphasis, clarifications, and expressing certain themes in Molloy: "he's in a hurry. He didn't seem to be in a hurry, he was loitering, I've already said so, but after three minutes of me he is in a hurry, he has to hurry." (13) "A and C I never saw again. But perhaps I shall see them again. But shall I be able to recognize them? And am I sure I never saw them again? And what do I mean by seeing and seeing again?" (15) "… she took me for my father. I took her for my mother and she took me for my father." (17) "Is it your mother's name? said the sergeant, it must have been a sergeant. Molloy, I cried, my name is Molloy. Is that your mother's name? said the sergeant. What? I said. Your name is Molloy, said the sergeant. Yes, I said, now I remember. And your mother? said the sergeant. I didn't follow. Is your mother's name Molloy too? said the sergeant." (23) "I don't know. I knew it and I did it, that's all I know." (23) "But from time to time. From time to time." (83) "…I was there. For I was there. And being there I did not have to go there…" (86) "They had an Aberdeen called Zulu. People called it Zulu. Sometimes, when I was in a good humour, I called, Zulu! Little Zulu!" (105) "He was crying. Everybody was crying." (127) "I'll tell you. No, I'll tell you nothing. Nothing." (134) "He did not know I was ill. Besides I was not ill… But then he would have seen I was ill. Not that I was exactly ill. And why did I not want him to know I was ill?" (141-142) "How I would love to dwell upon him. His dog loved him, his sheep did not fear him." (158) 18

The question may be raised now on the relationship between emphasis and absurdity? Considering the quotes above, the narrator wreaks a mental exasperation when he mumbles and then emphasizes his mumbling. This might be interpreted as either the weakness from the author himself or intentionally added by him. What is important for this discussion is the second possibility. The emphasis on a certain idea or theory, such as the atoning of the factuality in the entire realm, may cause obsessions that no certainty is to be asserted. This emphasis is introduced in different techniques throughout the trilogy some of the remarkable instances of which are highlighted through the above-mentioned dialogues. 1.1.7 Euphemism The next technique to be surveyed in the corpus of this study is ‘euphemism’ that, according to Cuddon, is the substitution of a mild and pleasant expression for a harsh and blunt one (150). As Cuddon emphasizes, the use of this device became very specious in officials, broadcasting and newspapers though it has been used widely by educationists, sociologists, and bureaucrats during the 20th century (243). In a similar vein, authors tend to apply this technique to address the ultimate concept of a specific period or place. In Murphy, the conventional omniscient narrator avoids the indifference to suspend upon his characters and style. Drawing on euphemism the writer has tried to refer to Murphy and Celia’s relationship, aiming at calling attention to the ultimate consumerist nature of the whole world. In "A nourishing and economical dish, if a little indigestible." (98) The term "economical" might appears to strengthen the formality of the text, which doesn’t appear to be intentionally used as a euphemistic term, but it euphemistically means ‘cheap’. Beckett uses ‘economical’ instead of ‘cheap’ to mention an indigestible Irish stew, and this perhaps emanates from his racial intolerance toward Ireland. An old woman in Molloy, trying to defend the old man who has killed her son during the war, uses ‘departed’ for ‘dead’ that is a reflection

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of her gentleness in delivering her meaning:"having no other means of support than the pension of my dear departed..."(33) and the phrase “worse for wear” in "It was a little the worse for wear,” similarly, (49) is used instead of “shabby or worn through use” to play the same linguistic role. However, there is an incongruency in Beckett’s using vulgar speech in some cases and the euphemistic language in another. This might be interpreted as the writer’s politics to bring to light the absurdity through his paradoxical use of language. 1.1.8 Flashback Hayman asserts that the confrontation of Krapp with his past in Krapp’s Last Tape, is better than any type of flashback techniques used over literature. (72) Krapp’s listening to his tape at the age of 39 after thirty years old make him laughing upon himself and he consecutively starts a new tape commenting on that. Flashback enjoys an exclusive significance as a technique compared to those discussed so far for analyzing our data in that it contributes to explain the interrelation between the two key characters in Molloy, i.e., Molloy and Moran. Since flashback is defined as "a change in the temporal sequence of the story so that it moves back to show events that took place earlier than those already shown." (Quinn 167), through this technique we are guided to Moran’s true identity; his being the selfsame of Molloy. The Narration of Moran in the second part of the novel represents the actions of Molloy in the past. In other words, Moran is the chronologically later youth of Molloy. This claim is verified by the facts from the book in that both of them think alike, have the same temperament to a considerable degree, and have the idea of one uncertain fate. According to Beckett’s absurd world, every individual shares the same uninterpreted sequel, and so, Moran is Molloy, Gaber is Moran, Moran is Lousse, … etc. The last part is a flashback of the first part, and this technique features the modernist’s capacity to regulate his mind.

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1.1.9 Foreshadowing It is important to every author, to construct tension in his narration. This trait can be illustrated mainly using literary techniques especially ‘foreshadowing’, which hints at a specific atmosphere concerning rhythm and theme. According to Quinn, Foreshadowing is the hint in a narrative of later developments and may assume a variety of forms (170). Cuddon seems to be more explicit in defining this technique as arranging events and information in a narrative in such a way that later events are prepared for or shadowed forth beforehand (271272). Thematic unity is a substantial part that can be attained via this technique. In Molloy, the ending sentences are the same initial sentences, for instance, that is a foreshadowing of the beginning to the last sentence when he says:"I am in my mother's room. It's I who live there now. I don’t know how I got there. "(7) He means his mother’s room, not the ditch and it is the same in Moran’s Narrative, where he says: “It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining. "(176). It foreshadows the perpetual situation and the circle of meaninglessness. It prohibits the conceivable closure, and signifies the impossibility for the characters including the protagonist, to interpret the rear of their existence. 1.1.10 Imagery Molloy, as many modern fictions, is full of mental images proposed by soliloquy and stream of continuousness. Most of these images are to describe findings, thus characters, places, and dead people, which are closer to factual reality than ideas or actions. According to Cuddon, imagery as a general term covers the use of language to represent objects, actions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, states of mind and any sensory or extra-sensory experience that is not necessarily a mental vision, but may come in three levels, i.e., literal, perceptual and conceptual (316-7).

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For the sake of brevity, instead of mentioning all imagery samples, I will only pick up the quotes that have absurd indications from the main source and discuss them." I who had loved the image of old Geulincx, dead young, who left me free, on the black boat of Ulysses, to crawl towards the East, along the deck." (51) Geulincx, the real Belgian philosopher who died in the middle of the 17th century, was mentioned by a character of a modern narrative, it is exciting! Geulincx’s insists on optimism, while Molloy’s life is pessimistic one. Let’s consider this as a somewhat juxtaposition. The word “Ulysses” was not italicized so that Molloy does not mean the fiction of James Joyce. He obviously addresses Odysseus since he refers to reaching the East through crawling on the deck of Ulysses’ boat as a perceptual artistic image that fuses absurdity within the imagination. A more deliberate perceptual image may be found in Molloy’s metaphorical utterance on his knowledge: "And my head was a storehouse of useful knowledge."(85) The clear metaphoric “storehouse of useful knowledge” denies Molloy’s perpetual claim of being ignorant of many habits and feelings that he encounters. He usually answers his questions and wonderings by "I do not know", how, then, he can be a storehouse of knowledge? This "I do not know” does not mean they lack knowledge, but the contentment with this knowledge. If someone is certain about something, he might question the reason behind this certainty, and if he has no reason, it is absurdity. Molloy, as well as Beckett, lacks reason, not knowledge itself. According to Quinn, every use of Metaphor or Simile constitutes an image. (205) the following Example demonstrates Quinn’s claim: They had an Aberdeen called Zulu. People called it Zulu. Sometimes, when I was in a good humour, I called, Zulu! Little Zulu! and he would come and talk to me, through the railings. But I had to be feeling gay. I don't like animals. It's a strange thing, I don't like men and I don't like animals. As for God, he is beginning to disgust me. (105) Every Peace of literature has an absurd side because no fiction is free of Metaphor or Simile. And the use of these two devices creates a sense of unfamiliarity, a sense of 22

defamiliarization. The Aberdeen is a type of dog and this name comes from Aberdeen city located in Scotland. In “and he would come and talk to me” What is the reason behind personifying the dog? And what is the significance of being homosexual to talk to a dog? It is meaningless and no interpretation can take part in factual reality here. The absurdity lies in this unfair Simile which compares a dog to God. This will absolutely disturb the reader’s perception of Truth. 1.1.11 Irony The superior technique that treats absurdity by all means of the word, is Irony that is, according to Quinn, the reference to the technique of implying something very different from what one is explicitly saying (222). Irony serves three avails: as a rhetorical and literary technique; as a style of literature; and as a way of understanding life. Molloy contains a clear use of ironical phrases, those which construct a rhetorical aspect of the narrator’s Monologue. In: What I do know for certain is that I never sought to repeat the experience, having I suppose the intuition that it had been unique and perfect, of its kind, achieved and inimitable, and that it behooved me to preserve its memory, pure of all pastiche, in my heart, even if it meant my resorting from time to time to the alleged joys of so-called self-abuse. (58) Fletcher states that the phrases " intuition, unique and perfect, achieved and inimitable, behooved, and preserve its memory, pure of all pastiche, in my heart" all are conveying the opposition of the apparent meaning and they act as the ironical fulcrums of the text. (158) It is very important to define the three types of irony as it is interconnected with the goals of this study. Verbal irony "involves not meaning what one says, but saying what one means." according to Cuddon (332) Situational irony "occurs when, for instance, a man is laughing uproariously at the misfortune of another even while the same misfortune,

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unbeknownst, is happening to him." (332) And, according to Quinn, in dramatic irony, the audience has knowledge that the character lacks." (223) The verbal irony and situational irony are frequently apparent, but still, no impress from the dramatic irony for two reasons. The first reason concerns the type of genre: it is not dramatized and we have no audience. The second reason is the static perpetuity of meaningless actions and the open ending. We are not to mention too much about ironical scenes in Molloy, or any of the three fictions of the trilogy as it needs no investigation to prove that irony plays a very sensitive role in supporting the theory of an unreasoning timeline of the events. The novel is full of paradoxes. When a narrator reveals a very ridiculous detail in a somewhat superiority, the narrator conjoins an irrelevant action to a specific matter, or adjectivizes an opposition to what was predicted; it is the intended use of absurd irony. 1.1.12 Metaphor In linguistics, when someone says a sentence that means something but stands for another theme, it is called a pragmatical sentence. In Literature, it is called a Metaphor. Cuddon defined Metaphor as a device in which what is given stands for and refers to something else. (383) According to Butler, through the initial era of his artistic life, Beckett repeatedly declared his opposition to the art which imposes a certain meaning on the reader. (Butler 70) Beckett was considered as the master of comedy by many critics, and the core of comedy is the smart use of Metaphor. A significant metaphorical use that provides the impression of absurdity can be found between the two quotations in Molloy. And it seemed to me that if I kept on in a straight line I was bound to leave it, sooner or later. So, I set myself to this as best I could, making allowance for the drift to the right of the feeble light that was my guide. And my pertinency was such that I did indeed come to the ramparts as night was falling, having described a good quarter of a circle through bad navigation (65)

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After he loses his path to the city by meeting Mrs. Lousse, he attempts to travel in a straight line but we come across another point in later narrations, where he makes a decision that resulted in making him travel in a circle, as in "that when a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality, he is going in a circle" (85) This mathematical use of metaphor is important to determine his direction throughout the narration, but his direction was adrift. (Solomon 64). The use of the vulgar metaphor also reflects the intention of absurdly delivering the information to the reader, as in "I began at the beginning, like an old ballock, can you imagine that?" (8) He links the action to an object that is like an old testis. Commonly, Beckett leaves the imagination to the receiver to judge in what manner this simile is consumed. A very sensible case of this may be found in the following quotation: And if I have always behaved like a pig, the fault lies not with me but with my superiors, who corrected me only on points of detail instead of showing me the essence of the system, after the manner of the great English schools, and the guiding principles of good manners, and how to proceed, without going wrong, from the former to the latter, and how to trace back to its ultimate source a given compartment. (25) Aside from having a literal metaphor in addressing himself like a pig, Molloy presents a profusion of criticism on systems, schools, and principles. It seems like the depression of not having the hope to catch the tale of the ultimate reality. Molloy compares his and Mrs. Lousse’s situation to a forfeited army after the occasion of her Aberdeen death " We slung him across the saddle and set off like an army in retreat, helping each other…" (35) a very meaningful metaphor to depict the military corpses of the WWII like a dead dog, and is a message to stop this nonsense. The evidence f this claim is the use of “him” referring to not just an inanimate object, but to a corpse of this inanimate object which is a dog, and the ironic environment of Beckett works especially when no fixed meaning can be deduced from his intentions. There is a very unnoticeable contrast between the two metaphors implied in the “dead leaf” and the “flowers” in this sentence: "And In the midst of those men I drifted like a dead 25

leaf on springs, or else I lay down on the ground, and then they stepped gingerly over me as though I had been a bed of rare flowers." (52) Drifting is a life-like attribution, as to make the action, one must be alive, and laying down is a feature of dead objects which is ascribed to the blossomed flowers. 1.1.13 Onomatopoeia It is weird to find onomatopoeia in such fiction when it deals with the realistic way sto fictionize the apocalyptic situation of an aspect of reality. Molloy is considered as a modern realistic novel, but still, we have that attractive use of literary techniques within the overflowing stream of consciousness of the narrator. The purpose of surveying onomatopoeic quotations in this argument is its unparalleled occurrence, as well as the role it plays in conveying absurdity. In his literary technique, according to Cuddon, It is that sound that reflects the sense and it is very common in verse and fairly happens in prose and may be found in literatures of all times (457). It is absurd and ironic for a person to dismiss his best thinking. And this is what happens in Molloy’s utterance and through utilizing onomatopoeia: "And the words I uttered myself, and which must nearly always have gone with an effort of the intelligence, were often to me as the buzzing of an insect." (50) Molloy addresses a rhetorical reason for calling his monologue, a buzzing of insect, even though he considers it as an effort of intelligence. The tone of absurdity divulges itself when Malloy addresses his splendid ideas as hallucinations to some degree, while he displays no predisposition to listen to the voice in his mind telling him of this intelligence. The use of onomatopoeia in a literary work such as Beckett’s which is imbued with artistic themes persuades the reader and encloses him to the realistic edge of life as in other instances of it in Molloy: " Like Job, haha, he said. I too said haha." (101) "I laughed so much I began to hiccup." (116) "For they do not account for that noise you hear when you really 26

listen, when all seems hushed." (49) "I knocked against obstacles scarcely visible on the horizon." (50) It seems that this technique enjoys an exclusive significance for realists, minimalists, and to every work that mimics the absurd humiliation of mankind specifically in the twentieth century and to every work that mimics the absurd humiliation of mankind specifically in the twentieth century. 1.1.14 Repetition Repetition could be one of the most important literary all through the history of literature. It is widely used in different genres. Cuddon defines it as "An essential unifying element in nearly all poetry and much prose that may consist of sounds, particular syllables and words, phrases, stanzas, metrical patterns, ideas, allusions and shapes." (552) This use of repetition has proved to be functional in strengthening the reader’s memory of a certain event or word, as well as it may show him how instrumental this word may be to the author. In Molloy, the repetition is linked to absurdity, which enables the reader to remember repeated phrases easily and associate them with every possible notion meant by the author. Repetition enables the author to control and dominate the reader's mind indirectly and is more flexible than other techniques. It can be used excessively in a paragraph to form a strong context, while the inordinate use of any other literary technique might weaken or even ruin the context. Exaggerated repetition is an absurdity itself. The successive repetitions of the next sentences mainly serve as emphasis: "Premonition of the last but one but one." (8) and "Resting, I said. Resting, he said. Resting, I said." (20), and the sentence "I do not know” occurred 40 times in Molloy and the successive occurrence of the same sentence in "… I don't know, restored to myself, no, I never left myself, free, yes, I don't know what that means…" (13) signifies absurdity while they typically can say “I know”. It is significant to address Molloy and Moran’s knowledge as a postwar narrator and

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it seems that this paradox is the substantial significance of not being certain. The problem of not knowing to Molloy is the same to Beckett: why does someone say "I don’t know" regarding something he has already created? The answer does not seem to be difficult; the author believes in nothing and no truth can belay his satisfaction. The process of saying “I don’t know” is to ironically question the knowledge people have reached about the world. Repetition in Molloy serves more than its usual use. Other examples of repetition which serve for emphasis and drawing attention to a seemingly minor detail are mentioned in "… but no, no. But…" (40) and "… my hat and my boots. My boots." (46) A more careful investigation reveals extensive use of “sleep, slept, and sleeping” throughout the novel. This repetition is very significant in indicating the infinity circle of life and the perpetual routine of life and death. Molloy sleeps and wakes, sleeps and wakes all over his life just as he dies and reborn, as if Beckett is asserting the meaninglessness of life, and human beings were created for no reason but absurdity, the point to which he has come as a result of human cruelty. 1.1.15 Symbolism Unlike Metaphor, Symbolism is the technique that stands for a certain interpretation or reference inexplicitly. Let’s say it is something that mainly depends on the reader to be comprehended throughout the context in a wide range of connected passages, while Metaphor is a technique that might appear to be distinct and intended by the writer, and it can be figured under a narrow space of black ink. Quinn has defined Symbolism as:" A widely used term in many disciplines, referring to the process by which a person, place, object, or event comes to stand for some abstract idea or condition" (408) it is very close to Metaphor, but let’s remember that Metaphor can frequently accept simile and comparison. It is from Frank.

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Molloy has a great number of details to symbolize. He began his marathon by addressing a very ridiculous minor detail take over Molloy seems to be obsessed with those stones which are unworthy of mention but they sometimes appear to be a nuisance. But of the other objects which had disappeared why speak, since I did not know exactly what they were. And perhaps they had been taken from me at the police station, without my knowing it, or scattered and lost, when I fell, or at some other time, or thrown away, for I would sometimes throw away all I had about me, in a burst of irritation. So why speak of them? (45) This process exactly symbolizes the detail that appears to be important in an individual’s life, but it is nothing. It is absurd to try to solve ridiculous problems while they are entirely nothing. The world's entire systems and ideologies are built warp and extend to produce warp events. At the end of his sentences, Beckett hints at some of the world's disasters and problems of needs that are not worth mentioning. It is ridiculous to take something that one does not have any idea of its use. When Molloy stole that small silver tool, he stopped thinking about its usage: I had stolen from Lousse a little silver… for I could never understand what possible purpose it could serve, nor even contrive the faintest hypothesis on the subject. And from time to time I took it from my pocket and gazed upon it … But for a certain time, I think it inspired me with a somewhat veneration, for there was no doubt in my mind that it was not an object of virtue, but that it had a most specific function always to be hidden from me. (63-64) A great symbol for treating life’s absurdity is referring to undefinable things as beautiful aspects even if we ignore their use. People might harm themselves while trying to understand something easy to understand. Therefore, stopping efforts of trying to understand objects will bring a sense of mental peace. Absurdity seems to appear again when it comes to friendship. As usual, friends are the source of joy. Friends frequently are human, sometimes are animals, but what if someone’s friend is a bicycle!? An inanimate figure which brings the hero several benefits deserves to be

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mentioned as a symbol of ease and pleasure. Moreover, Molloy and Moran share the same friend which supports our preceding claim that Molloy is the first mentioned mature Moran.

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Section Two 1.2. Malone Dies One of the most important works of Beckett’s early writings is Malone Dies. As we mentioned, it resembles the ring that joins Molloy with The Unnamable. If it did not exist then, the trilogy will appear to have no sense because it lightens the sharp deflection between the perfection of Molloy and the disintegration of The Unnamable. This novel marks the transitional case of a modern man from sentimental stability to fierce chaos. Based on what we understood from Beckett and many modern writers, the reader cannot perceive any plot, and development of characters, or any conclusion. It is hopeful to discover that Beckett still believes in death, despite his doubts, Malone holds the belief that death is the future. Malone Dies supports the new way that Beckett exhibited in Molloy, which is not paved by Plot, case, theme, and characters. As the title suggests, whatever happens, Malone finally dies. Malone’s ego is worse than Molloy or Moran because they can complete an idea through narration. They at least have a mind to achieve what began to appear. Malone is a professional one in the beginning but so colt in endings. Malone begins to narrate some intellectual fragments, but they disappear thoroughly before they end. This indicates Malone's physical and mental disability as well. Malone strongly features Molloy; both are two old men narrating in a written form on their beds. Malone writes deferent topics from what Molloy presents in his narration. He is not writing about himself like Molloy, he writes scattered fragments from his memory and writes about a fictitious character called Sapo who in the development of the novel becomes Macmann. Malone dies can faintly be attributed as an eventful novel. As Kenner puts it, he writes stories to let the time pass until he reaches his last breath. (73)

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Just like in Malloy, the reader hardly knows what has happened, when he has finished reading the whole novel, how did he get there! The text here is free from any explanation, the time passage is the only detail that roles the novel, no actual events. The fiction begins just as a given point and ends with Malone’s death. Malone dies, by itself, has a unique oddity. Malone mentions four protagonists of preceding works of Beckett "Then it will be all over with the Murphys, Merciers, Molloys, Morans, and Malones unless it goes on beyond the grave. and several lines later he" (236) Before that, he admits that he managed to kill five people, Murphy and retired butler, the agent in Mercier et Camier, the charcoal-burner who was assaulted by Molloy, and the detective murdered by Moran. With the variation and the constant changes in the names throughout the development of his fiction, Beckett urges the reader to reconceptualize the setting of Molloy and Malone dies as a matter of subjectivation, not of names. Whatever name a certain character was given does not account for the result; whether the name was A or B, the idea will be conveyed. There is a notable similarity between Malone dies’ and Molloy’s structure. Malone dies is divided into two dualities just like Molloy. By a pair of references, the first represents Malone’s present situation as a reference to Molloy. Both are octogenarians writing fragments, and the second resembles Macmann as a reference to Moran. We still have dualities everywhere even Macmann is named Sapo for a specific period. Malones frenzies of story-telling are permanently interrupted by those periods of bleak interventions when he returns to mention details of the dead world, drowning, and suffocation. He aims to avoid this by his new integrity and doing something that would be a legacy. These interactions between vice and virtue make the straightforwardness of the novel. Fletcher puts it properly that the very ambiguity of what comprises the fiction and what does not is the most important theme. (152)

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Malone tells a notable story about Macmann, lying on his bed, falling into an affair with his female nurse named Moll. As the plot continues, Moll dies and we as readers learn that Macmann will be served by another male nurse. No one knows how Moll was killed and by whom, even the narrator and the author themselves. Lemuel, the new male nurse came to Macmann’s room and told him about what happened "One morning early a man whom he had did not see before, came and told him that Moll was dead". "There's one out of the way at least. My name is Lemuel, he said, though my parents were probably Aryan, and it is in my charge you are from now on." (266) Beckett usually says that authors can kill their creatures and so, we learn that Malone as a narrator claims to kill Moll, "Moll. I'm going to kill her. " (264) and she subsequently dies. Lemuel also kills Maurice and Earnest with his hatchet. As Lemuel is a nurse saving lives, there is no logic in his killing people. Undoubtedly, the absurdity of a nurse’s being a murderer is a fact to be readily acknowledged. Lemuel enters the room telling Macmann about Moll’s death, he probably killed her himself, even though there were no shreds of evidence for this claim but Malone’s previous quote. 1.2.1. Allegory The deep meaning behind writing fragments of ideas and stories with no endings reflects the complete disability of both, mind and body. The modern man is unable to fill his daily life with something important that he aims to achieve. When a young author speaks of life and opportunities from an octogenarian’s point of view, aging and the passing of time are not worth mentioning. This novel constitutes an absurd inability of young minds as well as mature ones to interpret or to provide a reason for life. The only thing that people are certain about in their future is death of an uncertain time. Malone’s hobby of coming up with a story with no desire to finish it carries Beckett’s spontaneous disability. Beckett’s early fiction,

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especially Malone dies acts like a swamp where planktons partly float to create new shapes every time they appear. That’s the matter with Malone dies. 1.2.2. Allusion Beckett used another shape of allusion throughout the trilogy in Malone Dies. The fragmental dialogue between him and his mother about the sky reflects a very innocent aspect of his life. "The sky is further away than you think, is it not, mama? It was without malice, I was simply thinking of all the leagues that separated me from it. She replied, to me her son, it is precisely as far away as it appears to be. She was right. But at the time I was aghast." (268) The innocence which every human is born with into the world can fade away so much that it makes a man not care about committing murder. The reason behind this desperate loss is the unfulfilled dreams and the unachieved goals. The constant search for the truth might cause some illusions that would lead to absurdity. 1.2.3. Anaphora The same quality of using the most important literary techniques in Molloy was applied in Malone dies. Anaphora, the repetition of the same phrase in two or more successive sentences, clashes with the first paper of the novel and it carries a very beautiful rhythm. In "I shall be natural at last, I shall suffer more, then less, without drawing any conclusions, I shall pay less heed to myself, I shall be neither hot nor cold anymore, I shall be tepid, I shall die tepid, without enthusiasm. I shall not watch myself die…" (179) The repetitive ‘I shall’ should be achieved by a despondent who was prevented from both life and death. He could achieve neither of them and Beckett tries to say that even death’s comfort is hard to reach. The last sentence “I shall not watch myself die” (179) is odd and no one can avoid this scene. It seems

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to be one of the most freakish utterances of the work as the scene is unavoidable in that everyone will meet their death inevitably. But for sure, Malone is not complaining about his situation. This can be obvious in the following successive anaphoric questions. "Have I watched myself live? Have I ever complained?" (179) It is not new to find a piece of poetry in Beckett’s fiction: Oh the jolly spring Blue and sun and nests and flowers Alleluiah Christ is King Oh the happy happy hours Oh the jolly jolly — (285) Although it is not a normal piece of writing, more than four literary techniques gathered in 5 lines Anaphora construct a gorgeous intonation at the beginning of each line beside the subliminal meaning. 1.2.4. Asyndeton While he was focusing on reflecting the meaninglessness of every human behavior, Beckett did not forget to use curtailment in the text as a very important element of modern style. This curtailment shortens the passage’s length and enhances the dramatic gravity of the text. Cuddon defined asyndeton as the rhetorical device where conjunctions, articles and even pronouns are omitted for the sake of speed and economy. (59) Malone dies turned to be more dynamic in some parts of its narration. The use of asyndeton in this work as a rhetorical figure strengthens the message. It changes the syntactic order of the sentence by omitting conjunctions, but enhance the narration. Beckett is successful in conveying the idea he intended to deliver, with a bunch of semi-sentences intervened by commas. The following instances are articulate in revealing Beckett’s dexterous use of the technique: In "The woman came right into the room, bustled about, enquired about my needs, 35

my wants." (185) In "It is on my back, that is to say prostrate, no, supine, that I feel best, least bony." (186) "Sapo looked at his father's face, sad, astonished, loving, disappointed, confident in spite of all." (188) The use of the final ‘and’ happens very rarely in the quoted cases, and there is no attempt to close the compound sentence. A very clear last example is "He would stand rapt, gazing at the long pernings, the quivering poise, the wings lifted for the plummet drop the wild reascent, fascinated by such extremes of need, of pride, of patience and solitude. " (191) Each of the examples above has an intensity of meaning in a small area of text. The relativity of asyndeton to the absurdity can be concluded in the oddity that appears in these sentences. The traditional novel cannot handle this intensity without losing its unity or plot. Malone dies as a modern work, however, is replete with this rhetorical technique which accounts for Beckett’s competence as an Irish writer and native user of English who chose to write in his second language (French), and translate his works to his mother tongue. Despite the long process of this creation, he introduces a very well-organized work which fully utilizes the efficient literary techniques. 1.2.5. Epistrophe Malone dies is full of emphases on a certain number of ideas such as mortality, meaninglessness, and the mind-body relationship. Epiphora (Epistrophe) is the counterpart of Anaphora as we mentioned before, and it enjoys a unique significance in Malone dies. These appearances, however, seem tend to be weak or unintentionally popped up, as “home” in ‘The man has not yet come home. Home.’ (191) Beckett, possibly means to be ironic on the term ‘home’ according to what was perceived in life. In "Not that he was restrained by modesty, when his sister was there. Nor was she, when her brother was there." (215) The word “there”

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that occurred successively in two sentences seem to be incompatible with each other according to meaning, but the similarity of the closing part might enlighten their shared oddity. A very well performed epistrophe may be found in the following pair of sentences: “His mouth opened, his lips worked, but I heard nothing. He might as well have said nothing. " (269) Malone emphasizes the nothingness of things, the inability of words to change fate. If he has heard the words or not, what does this account for? Nothing. In "Sapo stood watching him. A great calm stole over him." (212) and "I had stopped looking at him. I had got used to him. I was thinking of him…" (272) "Too soon, too soon. Well it is still too soon." (181) "or to overhaul the machines and get them ready for the impending dawn. The impending dawn." (194) "I simply want to hear It said again. Just once again." (199) "Lemuel was not liked, that was clear. But would he have wished to be, that is less clear" (280) Above are different samples of Epistrophe, each of them enjoys a certain rhyme and keeps the emphasis on the narration's intonation. 1.2.6. Euphemism Just like Molloy, Malone Dies has a bunch of euphemistic expressions that lighten the vulgarity of speech and take care of the common sense. This type of writing, as Cuddon confirms, was in vogue for the 20th century’s sociologists, educationists, and bureaucrats (243). Beckett, although a modernist writer, uses this technique to avoid the repulsive air of utterances: “But to pass on now to the garments that really matter, subjacent and even intimate, all that can be said is that this for the moment is delicate ground." (229) He uses "to pass on "for death to give the expression and agreeable hue and the same objective is followed in the next sentence by Malone "But let us leave these morbid matters and get on with that of my demise, in two or three days if I remember rightly. Then it will be all over with the Murphys, Merciers, Molloys, Morans, and Malones, unless it goes on beyond the grave." (236) The word

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“demise” refers to the process of dying, and “beyond the grave” is a unique reference for life after death. meanwhile, indicates Beckett’s belief in life after death. The obsession with dualities enforced Beckett to write complex and long sentences, each with two euphemistic terms, either by putting two in one sentence, or none in several pages. In "Here lies Malone at last, with the dates to give a faint idea of the time he took to be excused and then to distinguish him from his namesakes, numerous in the island and beyond the grave." (271), the phrase “be excused” means going to the lavatory, and “beyond the grave” means “dead” here, not “life after death”. The problem of this argument is the confusion between finding vulgar, indecent, blunt, and logistical words on the one hand and the excessive use of euphemistic terms on another, throughout the novel. In “Go and see how Macmann is getting on perhaps." (255), for example, the clause “getting on” stands for growing older and Malone refers to death with the phrase ‘passed away’ in “But have I not perhaps just passed away?” (251) and the instances of the first category may readily be found in the following sentences: "A stream at long intervals bestrid — but to hell with all this fucking scenery." (277) and "The poor bastard." (271). This confusion extremely enhances the mood of absurdity and futility of society itself, not life as a whole. A major question needs to be answered here: is this confusion considered as one feature of modernism or it is typical of Samuel Beckett himself? 1.2.7. Foreshadowing For Malone Dies and most of Beckett’s fiction, the end is perceived from the title or first few pages of the work. As the title suggests, Malone dies ends with Malone’s death. The very first sentence of the novel directly casts the net on the fish. Malone says: "I shall soon be quite dead at last in spite of all. Perhaps next month. Then it will be the month of April or of May." (179) Beckett sends a message to his readers that the unity and creativity of the work 38

must have a foreshadowing hint from the beginning. Considering the relationship between Foreshadowing and Absurdity, one may find them integrated, each reinforces the other. As a modern writer, he removes the surprise of the plot because there is no plot. No need for more examples; the only foreshadowing that may be mentioned through the investigation in Malone dies is Malone’s death and it is foreshadowed in the title until and abides there up to the end of the novel. 1.2.8. Imagery Considering the role of imagery in the works of Beckett, a torrential pack of minutely constructed images are found in different layers of query. This is what makes Quinn’s definition of this literary technique more functional for this research though it seems to be more ambiguous than Cuddon’s definition of the term. Quinn defines imagery as the patterns of images that are the verbal equivalents of sense experience in a text or portion of a text and every metaphor or simile, for him, constitutes an image. "(206). Based on the justified proclamation about metaphysical uncertainty, the frequent references to the Biblical images have a double-edged indication. Firstly, the desperate attempts to define something indefinable, leads to defining it by using images and symbols, which were worshipped and dignified by generations. In Malone Dies, questioning the authority of the Creator, scrutinizing the reason behind the punishment, the nature of the everlasting sin and, finally, the possibility of atonement for the sin through the present punishment are unframed in imageries: And without knowing exactly what his sin was he felt full well that living was not a sufficient atonement for it or that this atonement was in itself a sin, calling for more atonement, and so on, as if there could be anything but life, for the living. And no doubt he would have wondered whether it was really necessary to be guilty in order to be punished but for the memory, more and more galling, of his having consented to live in his mother, then to leave her. And this again he could not see as his true sin, but as yet another atonement which had miscarried and, far from cleansing him of his sin, plunged him in it deeper than before. And truth to tell the ideas of guilt and punishment were confused together in his mind, as those of cause and effect so often are in the minds of those who continue to think. (239) 39

The attempts to interpret and explore the significance and the real meaning of these symbols, moreover, experience the possibility of stabbing the deification. Secondly, most of these symbols and beliefs occur in the moments of defeat, when the characters are weak and have no more options than surrendering to these beliefs and flying under the comfort cover of dogma. "…I would be lost in the eye of a needle, I am so hard and contracted?... All the stories I've told myself, clinging to the putrid mucus, and swelling, swelling, saying, Got it, at last, my legend." (225) Between his suffering in a darkened room and the trip of Macmann, Malone creates a very precise image through his narration. This image consists of two parts the ‘shrinking’ which represents his hardship of being in the eye of a needle looking for rest, and the “expansion” through the eye of Macmann and his adventure. According to Solomon, the personal narration of Malone represents shrinking, and this shrinkage will be turned into a dimensionless point. (41) Malone therefore, discovers that it cannot be accomplished unless having a corresponding activity that is the expansion and hovering far away from desperate reality which, indeed, is Macmann’s story. Malone’s health is still getting worse despite his lying on the bed all the time. The situation contributes to exposing the absurdity of narrating this sentence “I think they are chiefly in my back. They have a kind of rhythm, they even have a kind of little tune." (198) The image is clear in expressing the absurdity of the process in that Malone acts as if he could listen to his pain, singing, or running in a rhythmic way like soldiers’ queues to perform a certain action. It is worth mentioning that this image of shrinking and expansion can be interpreted as the ECG, the heartbeats of Malone while he is awake, and to complete his fictional journey, he must have some diversity. To stay perpetually absurd, he must have that rhythm of beating, those spaces between lines. This Image reveals the immensity of mind and imagination, they have no limits. Despite Malone’s physical disability, he could create his 40

realm with no limits, as in "I don't feel my feet anymore, my feet feel nothing anymore, and a mercy it is. And yet I feel they are beyond the range of the most powerful telescope." (234) As if his feet are Macmann’s, unstoppable feet. Meanwhile he is caught in a contradiction all of a sudden, creating an analogy between death and this feeling of numbness: "Is that what is known as having a foot in the grave? "(234) 1.2.9. Metaphor Metaphor as the shared quality of different things which occurs when the author describes a detail in a non-literal way, shows considerable implications in Malone Dies The comparison of the future nights to a game, as a quintessential case, creates a room for describing as well as discussing new facts about his entire life and what he is going to narrate: "This time I know where I am going, it is no longer the ancient night, the recent night. Now it is a game, I am going to play." (180) The only shared quality that can be found here between game and night is joy and, whether he has found it or not is yet to be discovered. The above quotation deals with absurdity in that the character longs to play but he seldom manages to do so while he knows that it is impossible to learn how to play at the party of the night he had in his imagination. But then, suddenly everything shatters, people leave and the lights are turned off. He finds himself alone skipping this imagination: "That is why I gave up trying to play and took to myself forever shapelessness and speechlessness, incurious wondering, darkness, long stumbling with outstretched arms, hiding." (180) The absurdity here resembles the prime attempt to imagine useful findings, but this attempt is also a failure. He fails at imagining useful findings which makes him drown in deep hopelessness. The use of simile in Malone Dies appears to be juxtaposition in following the goal to convey the theme of absurdity: "My head is almost facing the wrong way, like a bird’s" (198199) The previous sentences describe Malone’s pains and their bluish appearance as an image,

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and then he turned to ask God a statement-based question: "How bearable all that is, my God. "(199) which appears to be grammatically wrong. Here, the simile comes successively after them to compare his head to a bird’s head which appears frequently to have a shared quality with him. In other words, relating two findings that cannot be related is absurd The rhetorical use of literary techniques by merging metaphor with Imagery is a different way of utilizing metaphor to attain the objectives of absurdity: "I ask, And if I close my eyes, close them really, as others cannot, but as I can, for there are limits to my impotence, then sometimes my bed is caught up into the air and tossed like a straw by the swirling eddies, and I in it." (222). The bed is incapable of flying but it is given the property of straw, by comparison, to indicate that it is light as a flying object. The bed, in addition to the action performed to describe the situation of catching it in the air, and tossing it in swirling eddies, is given various attributions of straw to make it replete with imageries. Another clear metaphorical use which describes the two lovers standing beside the curtain in the threshold as dogs, while having sex is to be seen in "They have loved each other standing, like dogs." (238) Beckett could bring his minimalistic idea about the inability of the human being to have the right decision, despite the abundant tools to achieve something. When Malone compares himself to an indecisive monkey imprisoned in a cage, which is really in need to live out of it, and it has the key, but does not use it to open the cage door. Malone has a stick that is originally made to assist people in walking and transferring from one place to another, but he did not use it for this benefit: "I thought I was turning my stick to the best possible account, like a monkey scratching its fleas with the key that opens its cage." (254) The absurdity, in this case, lies under Malone’s consciousness about this pure fact. He is aware of this situation and admits his ignorance. Beckett was clever in performing this example; Malone wants to free himself from this dark room, and there is no evidence that he is paralyzed. Malone’s disability resides in his mind, particularly in the idea of “I’m dying” and he has left no way to escape. 42

1.2.10. Oxymoron Oxymoron, for combining incongruous and apparently contradictory words and meanings, enjoys a unique efficiency in conveying the theme of absurdity in Beckett’s trilogy, particularly in Malone dies. One of the most frequent uses of oxymoron in the mentioned work is ‘all alone’. Obviously, it contains two paradoxical words ‘all’ and ‘alone’ in"And at last, they would be all alone, with their memories. It would be time enough then to move." (188) which states the separation of the family members after their integration. The next page contains considerable number of sentences using the expression gave an illustration of paradox, which serves to focus on individuals: "Nothing is less like me than this patient, reasonable child, struggling all alone for years to shed a little light upon himself, avid of the least gleam, a stranger to the joys of darkness" (193), with "And all alone, well hidden, played the clown, all alone, hour after hour, motionless, often standing, spellbound, groaning." (184) and "Then, all alone and unobserved, he continued to behave as if beside himself, which is proof positive, is it not, that he was disinterested unless of course, he suspected her of having stopped outside the door to listen." (265). Oxymoron draws the attention of the reader to a certain hidden aspect of the narration and Beckett elaborately tries to individualize his characters and minimalize their actions from the inside towards the outside. The above quotations are telling about desperate situations of different types of societies, and each sentence explains an idiomatic use of the specific oxymoron the self-contradiction of which is reflected by the mirror of absurd ideas. 1.2.11 Repetition As mentioned before, repetition plays a very important role in drawing readers’ attention toward a certain context, idea, or image. Repetition helps the reader to memorize important elements of the work and recommends them to think deeper and try to analyze and

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rethink on the crucial themes of the story. This repetition of phrases, sentences, and ideas in Malone Dies, mainly, falls in two categories. The first is the short-term repetition of a word or phrase, which does not extend to another paragraph, just like the following quotes: "Dish and pot, dish and pot, these are the poles." (185), "All my senses are trained full on me, me." (186), "We are getting on, getting on." (193)," Not even, not even that." (264) These examples are I mentioned simply because of their relationship with absurdity, or minimalism. Emphasis on the dishes and pots and also neglecting food itself to some degree is odd and absurd because food is the pole, not the dishes, or pots. Why does someone focus on minorities and ignore the cornerstone, despite his knowledge? The repetition of the objective pronoun “me” in the following sentence, steers the focus on himself being trained by his senses, not something else. Malone treats his senses as something separated from his body. Here, the idea of mind and body arises again. Maybe the repetition of “me” paves the way for what will follow after the speech. The repetition of “getting on” in the third quote by Mr. Sapocast is unnecessary, and this unnecessity stems from the fragments of information from the character “Mr. Sapocast” made by “Malone” about a minor character “The sick player”. Critics might learn how to intensely emphasize on details produced by Beckett to create eccentric and unique images as well. The long-term repetition was continued from Molloy, going on through Malone Dies, represented by “sleep” “sleeping” and “slept”, the clear symbols of the end.

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Section Three 1.3. The Unnamable The relationship of The Unnamable with the two previous novels is not narrativebased, it is rather, thematic-based. Here, we have an unnamed narrator who is completely immobile and cannot move around. We know, firstly that the narrator is sitting in such a dark place, a cave or room probably. After a short introductory section, the sentences gradually become longer and longer, and the last four, five pages are simply one sentence. The narrator speaks about some characters who are probably made up, one named Mahood, another Worm. He also tells us that he is the author of the previous novels of the trilogy. It is hard to make sense of this novel which makes it one of the most confusing stories around the world. It is really hard to keep tracking what the author is saying or what he is intending to convey. The narrator talks a lot about voice, and how the voice creates us. The only way we know each other or the way we discover ourselves is by voice. I know people by what they talked to me and, certainly, I know myself by what I’m saying or what my brain is telling me. Therefore, he tries to be quiet somehow, he wanted to stop writing, stop thinking, and that represents an attempt to see the naked world, the metaphysical world, a world without materials. The narrator attempts to stop writing, but he could not achieve this and so, he carries on until he reaches an unstoppable point of fragmental narration. In some cases, the narrator speaks about how he wrote the other two novels of the trilogy. He tries to make sense of the world, but he suddenly realizes the futility of story-telling. He felt that he had betrayed life. This is a dance book it is incapable of being schemed, it is not important to follow and track everything in this trilogy, because it has disjointed parts, and that is the reason for the designation of this research work.

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The trilogy is correctly arranged according to the theory of minimalism. Molloy is about wondering and waiting. Waiting for something prime to happen, wondering if we have a goal or if we can achieve that goal and if we achieved it! Does it make sense concerning what we were wondering? Or it seems weird after reaching it? In Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, nothing happens, unfortunately, as if Beckett sees that the world is changing, but not for the better. It is all about the meaning and meaninglessness of the world. According to the analysis of the whole trilogy, one rarely says, but it is a reflection of the human condition in modernity. The unnamable is still a very suggestive option for a modernist to read. It has the higher quality of modern literature. 1.3.1. Alliteration Due to its chronology, the use of this literary device in fictional works is barely found or non-existent. It regards poetry or the title of other works from different genres. But Beckett frequently surprises his readers with his creativity and shows us loads of uses of alliteration, especially in The Unnamable. As we see in the following quotes. "… as if there could be no being but being conceived, if only by the beer." (346) and "… tralatralay pom pom, again, tralatralay pom pom, re mi re do bang bang bang…" (363), illustrate rhythmic alliteration in the first letter of a group of successive words in one sentence. It is hard to see this in prose, but the thematic effect has lots to reveal here, the theme of “Absurdity”. The alliteration here might simply be different from what we might see in poetry, but technically, it is still an alliteration, and it affects the whole context by implying the impression of futility. 1.3.2. Allusion To perceive allusions or hints of different past works in Beckett does not seem to a challenging task for the reader or the critic. It is easy to quote some of his allusions about the previous two novels of the trilogy, or Beckett’s other works and discuss them: 46

Malone is there. Of his mortal liveliness little trace remains… Sometimes I wonder if it is not Molloy. Perhaps it is Molloy, wearing Malone's hat. But it is more reasonable to suppose it is Malone, wearing his own hat. Oh look, there is the first thing, Malone's hat. I see no other clothes. Perhaps Molloy is not here at all. Could he be, without my knowledge? (303) The unnamable is pointing out to Molloy or Malone as if he knows them but he cannot recognize who is Molloy, or Malone. This strengthens our previous claim about the shared identity between Molloy and Malone. The unnamable also mentions three major characters of three different works in one sentence. "I have often asked myself this question, then suddenly started talking about Malone's hat, or Molloy's greatcoat, or Murphy's suit." (305) Being informed about the trivial details of the characters’ specialties speaks about his acquaintance with their mental and personal dispositions. Fragments of allusions in different utterances of The Unnamable displays the persistent insistence on a single theme, hopelessness: … as if I were he, or in another, let us be just, then he says Murphy, or Molloy, I forget, as if I were Malone, but their day is done, he wants none but himself, for me, he thinks it's his last chance, he thinks that, they taught him thinking, it's always he who speaks, Mercier never spoke, Moran never spoke, I never spoke, I seem to speak, that's because he says I as if he were I, I nearly believed him, do you hear him, as if he were I, I who am far, who cannot move, cannot be found, but neither can he, he can only talk, if that much, perhaps it's not he, perhaps it's a multitude, one after another, what confusion,… (403) Who is he? Who am I? We do not know. Who is Murphy? Who is Molloy? Who is Malone or Moran? Who is the unnamable himself? They are the questions of Beckett himself. These recurrent allusions in this novel function as a massive gun to eliminate the doubts about the nucleus of absurdity in Beckett’s mentality. 1.3.3. Asyndeton In The Unnamable, Beckett seems to be writing down whatever comes to his mind, clause by clause, without paying attention to the coherence of the text. The initial pages of the novel consist of short sentences, mostly including the most essential parts of speech, however, one cannot ignore the very long sentences to be found at the end of the novel, mostly

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compound and complex in structure. The concentration on the syntactical concerns of this story in this section aims at the clarification of the relation between asyndeton and the theme of absurdity As mentioned before, The Unnamable starts with simple sentences, continues with longer ones, and concludes with very complex and long sentences. The use of asyndeton in this work, is done in such a skillful way that the reader hardly is aware of the missing conjunctions: "a few feet away, slowly, always in the same direction." (292), "I'll say, I don't know, I'll say something, I'll think of something when the time comes." (292)." No, frankly, hand on heart, wait a second, no, nothing, to my knowledge." (295). "Say of me that I see this, feel that, fear, hope, know and do not know?" (300) It is the voice, allegedly, which influences the narrator to stop using conjunctions, to speed up the rhythm, and scatter the unity in a somewhat rubbish. The following quote is a very clear example of the role of voice in creating asyndeton: … in a chuckle, chuck chuck, ow, ha, pa, I'll practice, nyum, hoo, plop, psss, nothing but emotion, bing bang, that's blows, ugh, pooh, what else, ooh aaah, that's love, enough, it's tiring, hee hee, that's the Abderite, no, the other, in the end, it's the end, the ending end, it's the silence, a few gurgles on the silence, the real silence, not the one where I macerate up to the mouth, up to the ear, that covers me, uncovers me, breathes with me, like a cat with a mouse, that of the drowned, I've drowned, more than once, it wasn't I, suffocated, set fire to me, thumped on my head with wood and iron, it wasn't I, there yas no head, no wood, no iron, I didn't do anything to me, I didn't do anything to anyone, no one did anything to me, there is no one, I've looked, no one but me, no, not me either, I've looked everywhere, there must be someone, the voice must belong to someone,… (408) No plot is discerned here and we cannot feel the reality behind this nonconjoined text. It is the power of asyndeton to reveal the reality of unreality, to express the feeling of nothing but absurdity in a real absurd world 1.3.4 Colloquialism Regarding the usage of colloquial language and idioms, The Unnamable is the first in comparison to the two other novels because of the long narrative sentences and the attention of the narrator to enthrall the reader to the text itself. Beckett was clever in putting such spices into this fictional cuisine. Sometimes, the colloquial style of narration serves to have an 48

exclamational statement that keeps the way of the narration winding and it deteriorates the meaning from its rational trajectory. The word ‘brilliant’, for instance, in "…he'll have a good time, a brilliant career, in fury and remorse… "(383) refers to something that is really great, but the absurdity here is the unreality of what has already been said. The speaker wonders instead of taking an action and nothing will be done but waiting. The use of words such as ‘flake’ in fictional works is regular if it is addressing inanimate objects, but how to justify it if it is meant to refer to a person: sentence “I’m all these flakes” (386). Significant metaphors are utilized in Beckett’s narrative to show the desperate situation of the modern man who overlooks all his plans fluctuating between decision and undecidedness: "… I'm the air, the walls, the walled-in one, everything yields, opens, ebbs, flows, like flakes, I'm all these flakes…"(386). Kenner aptly accuses Beckett of being seldom ambitious about the shape, structure, and unity of a single text and adds that this helps us to think about the many other ideas and beliefs that Beckett overlooked or skipped after re-reading his drafts. (38) Frequent uses of different cultural colloquial terms are to be spotted in Beckett’s novel like the re-occurrence of ‘Eh’ in the main characters sentences: "That must be possible. And but suppose, instead of suffering less than the first day, or no less, he suffers more and more, as time flies, and the metamorphosis is accomplished, of unchanging future into unchangeable past. Eh?"(367), which means a check of an agreement in Canadian colloquium. The speaker who is probably the listener as well, tries to understand and believe himself, but frequently, the deterioration in finding the reason for what he is saying makes this self-inflicted fiasco. This culturally diverse does not illustrate anything but the great besetment of Linguistics in Beckett’s vault. Even if he wrote the original text in French, the translation was in collaboration with the author and the translator. No one can doubt the relationship of colloquialism used in this novel with the idea of absurdity indeed. 49

1.3.5. Epistrophe The Unnamable is an incarnation of the voice itself as pointed out before and this voice is present in the mind through the process of thinking. As to the relationship of this psychological consideration to epistrophe, though this literary device is highly dependent on voice due to its phonological appearance inside the text, this does not necessitate the identicality of pronunciation for the same word the end of more than two successive clauses. It mainly depends on what is written in white and black. Although The Unnamable is full of similar words enclosing those rich successive sentences, this investigation concentrates on the epistrophe related to absurdity. Considering the position of the subjective pronoun ‘I’ will be revealing in this respect: "…But it's not I, it's not I, where am I, … "(399) "who is I, who cannot be I “)404) "I know it's not I, that's all I know, I say I, knowing it's not I,” (404). The preceding sentences proficiently disclose a great sense of logic while they end with the subjective pronoun ‘I’, which is normally to open the sentence not to close it. Here, one might think that he is intentionally making a grammatical error. Beckett pioneered a new approach for applying novel changes to Literature. This approach accounts for Beckett and this technique established his fame and he is commonly acknowledged for reshaping literature. Beckett seems to be intentional in writing oddly dull sentences that is done through the use of epistrophe. Some instances of this type of writing may be found in the following quotations: "I have assigned him eyes that implore me, offerings for me, need of succour. He does not look at me, does not know of me, "(300) This dullness, paradoxically, proves to be enjoyable to the reader which may have root in its contribution to convey the theme of absurdity in Beckett’s The Unnamable.

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The theme of absurdity conveyed through epistrophe in The Unnamable is recognizable in still more instances: “losing it again, finding it again, not finding it again, seeking no longer, seeking again, finding again, losing again, finding nothing, finding at last, losing again," (385) People’s effort to sustain hope seems to be the main concern of the sentences, though immediately after, the answer “ you don't know what for, ah yes, something to do, no no, nothing to be done, "(385) turns the hope into the ash of absurdity and disappointment. This is exactly what we discover in any of the techniques’ analysis in the trilogy 1.3.6. Euphemism and Foreshadowing Absurdism, usually, utilizes comedy and irony in order to modify the rigidity of philosophical and didactic traits of the work: "No, I have no preference, Isolde's breast would have done just as well, or papa's private parts, or the heart of one of the little bastards. But is it certain?" (324) The Euphemistic “papa’s private parts” means the sexual organs of the narrator’s father, who is continuing to question the goal of being in life. Beckett's sentences display a resemblance to the difference between sound and silence. He typically feels that his words are not his, and they spring from his humanistic sympathy toward people's condition. This constructs a backward foreshadowing regarding The Unnamable, where the narrator feels that he acts a sympathetic role, he speaks the tongue of the public and words of others. Astro articulately asserts that such an attitude foreshadows Beckett’s feelings about The Unnamable and the theme of voice (44). As found in Beckett’s cyclic plot, this novel opens at the same point that it closes it. The narrator dawdles and procrastinate to achieve or finish something in the first two lines of this fiction: “Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on.” (291) and he does the same procrastination in the last line of this novel: “in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.” (414) at the end of it. Not more developments are found except for the 51

interventions of voices and perpetual exchanges. We may spot, however, representations of foreshadowing for many future works of Beckett. 1.3.7. Metaphor Beckett utilizes this literary device in demonstrating several images all around The Unnamable. This novel, undeniably would be the most ambiguous modern novel without Metaphor. This literary device constructs the unity and aesthetic side of the narrative. An intelligent comic scene that emerged on the first page of the novel constitutes a willingness to discover what is coming on when we read such sentences as: "With the yesses and noes it is different, they will come back to me as I go along and how, like a bird, to shit on them all without exception." (291). The shocking nature of scenes, sometimes, contribute to express the theme of absurdity in the novel. This type of nature, literally, is followed by the assistance of simile: “No, I have always been sitting here, at this selfsame spot, my hands on my knees, gazing before me like a great horn-owl in an aviary." (293), The description of the owl is absurdly intended, because the owl is not to live in an aviary basically, and the image of gazing itself reminds us of the meaningless waiting. This spot of light might provide the reader with a signal to go on with the odd and surprising text. In "No, he wheels, I feel it, and about me, like a planet about its sun." (295), the absurdity lies in the differences between the voice itself and the image we portrait in our minds when we read this quote. The cyclic wheeling strongly accepts the interpretation of unstoppable doubts about salvation and life after death. The metaphor of ‘a far calm sea dying’ in "I strained my ear towards what must have been my voice still, so weak, so far, that it was like the sea, a far calm sea dying. " (309), The metaphor of “a far calm sea dying” resembles a strong metaphor that marks the new changes in Modern Literature. The voice here represents the ineffective presence as if it is hearable, but not listenable at all.

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Chapter Two Minimalism and Anti-novel in Trilogy Introduction As completion of what has already been introduced in the first chapter, the second chapter is trying to connect the dots. After the analytic survey of the trilogy‘s details, the thesis needs a slide turning to the reasoning itself. Having an argumentative discussion of Beckett's minimalism in his translated trilogy is a very advantageous step to answer our queries. To bit about the geniality of Beckett, a critic must have a clever interpretation of literary techniques of the trilogy and linking them to the theme of minimalism. The major concern of minimalism is that it has, physically, negligible things to live with. Regardless of what Beckett had at his early stage of life, his early career indeed began with a small number of unique works and that accounts for his early minimalism. Mentally, it does not mean having less knowledge, thoughts, and ideas, but it focuses on being free of restrictions and complexity in producing an artifact or having an action. Minimalism, according to Quinn is a style in contemporary literature and art that aims at reducing the elements in a text to a bare minimum. "(265), and as an adjective, it is defined as a term used in the arts to denote an approach characterized by the elimination of elaboration."(Ayto 170) The term was coined to describe some of the American author’s writing style in modern literature. (Quinn 265) Minimalism is not delimitated to literature only and covers different types of art such as music and visual arts. Minimalism appeared as a theory in other visual arts and music before having a path in textual arts, particularly literature but this did not mean that narrative literature is unable to inspire painters. Contrarily, Beckett’s literary inspiration is acknowledged to be represented by detachment, repeating, and spareness. (Strickland 100) This recognition certainly assures the geniality of Beckett at that time. 53

It is important to differentiate between the minimal which adjectivizes the word ‘minimum’, and ‘Minimalism’, the literary movement that raised many question marks about fiction’s future. No more characters, settings, events, interpretations, and no more reality, equals no more development at the other hand indeed. This perspective will open the window to a very controversial literary term "Anti-novel "which will be discussed in the second section of this chapter.

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Section One Trilogy’s Minimalism Introduction A close reading of Beckett’s trilogy and focusing on the three novels’ fictional elements, themes, and settings, will, undoubtedly, reveal not more than five or six characters and some other figures in each novel. Some of these people are main characters and a considerable number are minor ones mentioned once or twice all through the story. During our analysis, we found either a simple setting like Molloy’s mother’s room, Malone’s ward, and the unnamable’s dark cell, or doubtful weird settings like the ditches, valleys, hills, and an abandoned island. Beckett avoids crowded and populated settings in the process of his characters' actions, perhaps to concentrate on the characters themselves. This simplicity is, also, illustrated in his later drama. 2.1.1. Minimalism in Molloy The objectives of minimalism are closely attached to perpetual happiness and epitomizing the happiness to be found in life itself, not in things that are artificially forged into life. It is up to any individual, then, to decide on the indicator of a comfortable life. Molloy is commonly acknowledged to represent conceptual art in modern literature and this representation sometimes appear to be irrational. As Batchelor asserts, the simplicity of Molloy’s sucking and carrying of those sixteen pebbles, which were either in his mouth or four pockets represents an intensive anti-rational activity declared by Beckett as an artist. (69) Yeoh claims that according to Malloy’s waiving of his right and the renouncement of all aspects of life throughout the novel’s events, he is the most prototypical figure in the trilogy and he reinforces the claim with a reference to Molloy’s statements "… the most you can hope is to be a little less, in the end, the creature you were in the beginning, and the middle. " (32). 55

The sentences seem to convey Molloy’s sense of insufficiency and self-reduction. Yeoh is right in describing Molloy as the most prototypical minimal self, based on his performance throughout the story. However, Yeoh’s belief that minimalism’s aim at controlling and dominating Molloy’s mind does not seem to be convincing. Molloy is confident and every single moment in his narration speaks of the joy he feels. This sense of confidence is clear even when he runs over the dog as he does not escape the situation. He confirms this claim by asserting that “Whereas my notions on being put to death inspired me with confidence, rightly or wrongly, and I felt I was entitled to act on them, in certain emergencies." (68). Molloy is in an unacknowledged need, i.e., having a mother: "And at the same time I satisfied a deep and doubtless unacknowledged need, the need to have a Ma, that is a mother, and to proclaim it, audibly." (17) Molloy’s minimal world is indicated in the fact that he is conscious of having a mother though unaware of her whereabouts. The same claim may be proved through another instance on page (23): It seems like he hints at reality itself. Every newborn has a truth, and this truth is having a mom, this mom is life itself before being a human being. The satisfaction of unacknowledged needs is a bold feature of minimalists. This discussion reminds us of the ironic absurdity elaborated in the first chapter. Molloy’s minimalistic character is readily discerned through his assertions. To be a minimalist is to have meager needs. This fact has already been discussed before, but what if this minimalist is satisfied with a long run after a bunch of hits and spits? Molloy has nothing but to escape complexities. He escapes from telling "why "to people who might blow, abuse, or hit him: “I am full of fear, I have gone in fear all my life, in fear of blows. Insults, abuse, these I can easily bear, but I could never get used to blows. It's strange. Even spit still pain me." (22)

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Jacques Moran also is a minimal hero who narrates the second part of Molloy. In "I Called Jacques. Without result. I said, seeing me still in a conference he has gone to mass alone. This explanation turned out subsequently to be the correct one. But I added, He might have come and seen me, before leaving. I liked thinking in monologue and then my lips moved visibly." (95) The monologue is a minimal feature by itself because the author forces the narrator to speak and act from a very narrow-angle and one self-perspective, avoiding ramification and complexity. Copeland elaborates this theme by asserting that the narrator as well as the hero are left with their minimal condition of being, directly confronting the mirror of self-consciousness, which will subsequently remind him of his harsh situation. (86) The following quote knocks upon a very sensitive string, which enhances Beckett’s tendency to forthrightness and simplicity: Here lovers must have lain at night and exchanged their vows. I entered one of the alcoves, wrong again, and leaned against the wall. I would have preferred to lie down and there was no proof that I would not. But for the moment I was content to lean against the wall, my feet far from the wall, on the verge of slipping, but I had other props, the tips of my crutches. But a few minutes later I crossed the alley into the other chapel, that's the word, where I felt I might Feel better, and settled myself in the same hypotenusal posture. (61) Molloy’s contentment as a poor man who never asked to have a lover finds clear portrayal in the sentences. Beckett points to the futility of what had been produced in the Classical and Romantic age of embellishments which does not have much reality to offer. We watch a dramatic symphony that adopts a refutation to what romantics provided in their works. According to Astro “Molloy was neutral in writing, free from usual embellishments. Molloy narrates absurd stories in an absurd manner, and readers are forced to reread to get involved in the mood again and again.” (52)

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2.1.2. Minimalism in Malone dies As pointed out before, Malone Dies is introduced as a more complicated novel than Molloy. Sharp and sudden events dominate the narration. The narrator frequently claims that he is the future of other characters of past works. In some cases, we feel that his confessions stem from a final interpretation of an octogenarian babbling in other cases of a dying sage. The same simplicity found in Molloy’s plot is present here with some more conclusions by the narrator. The main setting is a room of an asylum perhaps, which counts for the need to stay alive. The main minimal feature of Malone is his immobility as the main character as well as the narrator of the novel. To be immobile is the very tangible evidence of minimalism. The following quote concludes all that might be said concerning Malone Dies and minimalism: "In any case that is a thing I shall certainly do, no matter what happens. It will not take me more than a quarter of an hour at the most. That is to say, it could take me longer, if I wished. But should I be short of time, at the last moment, then a brief quarter of an hour would be all I should need to draw up my inventory." (181) A quarter of an hour is enough to accomplish any need he has, is a piece of clear evidence to claim Malone’s minimality. This means that he will rarely ask something more difficult than opening the window or eating food as well as writing an invented fragment. With the emergence of some irony, nothing of modern life’s complexity is to be magnified. Malone seems to have an ironic grudge towards other human beings as in asserts: "Let me say before I go any further that I forgive nobody. I wish them all an atrocious life and then the fires and ice of hell and in the execrable generations to come to an honored name. " (180), this hatred turns to the revenge of some secondary characters he created once during the narrative, and to an atonement once again. In both cases, he feels an achievement of satisfaction as in "It does not matter. I look forward to their giving me great satisfaction, some satisfaction.

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I am satisfied, there, I have enough, I am repaid, I need nothing more." (180) Here, the trifling case appears between the satisfaction itself and absurdity. Beckett uses minimality to explore different themes of the human condition in modern literature, which accounts for his view on the meaninglessness of reason. Another importance of Minimalism in Malone dies, lies in the futility and meaninglessness of people’s everyday actions, such as the stories told by Sapo-cast during his life journey, like man burying a donkey, a man slaughtering pigs, or actions asked from him to be done without being happening. The fragments of meditations concerning the uselessness of many habits demonstrated during the novel are explicit impressions of Minimalism. Beckett reveals his minimal mind again in Malone Dies as in Molloy but in a different way, with the help of literary techniques indeed. 2.1.3. Minimalism in The Unnamable To have an unnamed narrator is a pretty unique feature of modern fiction. As an author, Beckett found that designations are no more important in this last novel of the trilogy. This narrator is completely immobile; he cannot move anywhere unless by his mind. He, typically, narrates confusing stories about some details. We mentioned that thematically the three novels are connected, so that the same minimal features like the lack of characters, the scrubby development, and repeated setting as well, is dominating the atmosphere of the novel. This novel, as mentioned before, has an untraceable plot; the reader might hardly track the ideas as a result of frequent overlapping. After having to focus on how voice creates us, The Unnamable tries to be silent towards the end: “shall I ever be able to go silent” (303). In the following quotations, moreover, this silence is consistent with minimalism because it cuts the rope of debates on how life must be lived and how people ruined it by their greed: in” …the one to be spoken of, the one to speak, 59

but he cannot speak, then I could stop, I'd be he, I'd be the silence, I'd be back in the silence…” (413). The narrator of The Unnamable craves for seeing the raw world, the real world, the logical world without any type of artificial embellishments. Beckett rejected to name the unnamable because he wanted to create a space for speaking his mind. Beckett freed himself of any restriction in The Unnamable. He could speak of his pains in this novel whenever he failed to write in The Letters of Samuel Becket. Beckett felt disappointed because of what he achieved in his last works: All these Murphys, Molloys, and Malones do not fool me. They have made me waste my time, suffer for nothing, speak of them when, in order to stop speaking, I should have spoken of me and of me alone. But I just said I have spoken of me, am speaking of me. I don't care a curse what I just said. It is now I shall speak of me, for the first time. I thought I was right In enlisting these sufferers of my pains. I was wrong. They never suffered my pains, their pains are nothing, compared to mine, a mere tittle of mine, the tittle I thought I could put from me, in order to witness it. (303-304) Beckett tries to say that whenever a man writes about his sufferings and pains, he will never hit the point as it is, but will still look forward to the mercy that shows him the right path, which is the call of logic, the call of truth, and that of the creator.

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Section Two Anti-novel After the industrial revolution and the two world wars, crucial changes in artistic themes and concepts appeared. Culture took another path based on the obvious class discrimination among societies’ strata; the corrupt rich people, and the impoverished class, in dire need of help. Literature, accordingly, was to subscribe to this change. New literary theories began to bloom based on new global disasters. Before modern literature, the Romantic age dominated all branches of the literary world, but modernity opened the door to many literary schools such as Expressionism, Modernism, Imagism, Absurdism, Surrealism, and Post-Colonialism. AntiNovel, first coined by Sartre in 1948, is considered one of the manifestations of this era which, according to Cuddon, tends to be experimental and breaks with the traditional story-telling methods and form of the novel (46). This section will investigate anti-novel as a conception in Beckett’s trilogy, and as Beckett is granted the honor of being the father of Anti-novel (O’Hara 2), the theme enjoys a special significance in Beckett’s trilogy. 2.2.1. Anti-novel in Molloy As discussed before, anti-novel is the hammer that forges a new set of familiar novel conventions to construct a different fictional shell, thematic and structural. Considering the framework of anti-novel, Molloy proves to readily comply with this fictional framework from among the two other works. The arrayed life of Molloy as the protagonist, is closely attached to the distorted plot in overlooking the chronological order of the events. The plot is made up of two parts, with two distinctive narrators. The Molloy-Moran plot is affected by the chronological disorder, based on or preceding claim that Molloy is the old Moran himself. Here, the future finds manifestation before the past. Based on the plot, the interchangeability is obvious, and so, Moran is searching for Molloy, Moran knows about Molloy, Moran is the 61

past of Molloy and finally, Molloy is the future of Moran. A focus on temporal disorder, however, shows that Molloy never knew Moran and he never mentions him anywhere in his narration and vice versa. Moran who is the young Molloy is in a permanent search of Molloy, never to accomplish the feat. Molloy, in a similar vein, is in a permanent search for a mother. He addresses her with some features but he does not even know her name: “…finding my mother…” (24) “…I had set out to see my mother…” (27) “…to get to my mother…” (29) “…going to my mother…” (30) “…I was on my way to my mother…” (30-31) “…Perhaps I should go to mother…” (41) “It is difficult, is it not, to go to one's mother…” (44) “…I should soon find my mother…” (64) “I think I had been going to my mother” (87) “I was going forward in a straight line, in spite of everything, day and night, towards my mother.” (90) Another major characteristic of the anti-novel, i.e., is the unceasing course of a specific action, finds a vivid portrayal in these confessions by Molloy. The final page of the narration continues without any development, 0nly to reveal that all he has said about his mother are illusions. Nowhere, from the beginning to the very end, in the novel, Molloy has any news about her, nor meets her. The reader reasonably wonders about the humane identity of the mother, and is convinced to accept that what he is lacking and looking for, is an object rather than a woman. The reader sometimes gets the hint that this ‘Ma’ should be the life itself with all its surreptitious meaning and goals The same incessant search for someone called Molloy marks the main course of Moran’s narration: “I made my first attempt to grasp the Molloy affair.” (98) “…what to do with Molloy once he was found.” (136) “…I was to deal with Molloy, once I had found him.” (137) “…the first thing to do was to find Molloy” (138) “…I took to find Molloy the greater my chances of remembering what I was to do with him.” (138) “…what I was to do with Molloy, when I found him.” (145) “Perhaps I shall mee Molloy.” (175) According to the features introduced by Gaber, Moran made up 5 Molloys in his mind but after a long journey 62

of searching, Moran did not find the right Molloy even among the people he killed. This interprets the way that Beckett used to wonder about the future. Moran is Molloy, Molloy is his future, and he looked after this future to find it miserable, odd, unreasonable, and useless. This scenario is a reflection of human being actions and thoughts after WWII. Molloy lacks a manifest plot in that no dialogue, and no certain postulate is detected in it and all the agents and events of the narrations prove to be illusions. The characters are not sure of anything they mention or do and, still more surprising, they are not sure of being themselves either. All the pages of the entire novel must contain either “I think” or “not sure” or “I do not know”; the events and actions are not certain, they are shadows. 2.2.2. Anti-novel in Malone dies In Malone dies death is a normal experience that happens within seconds, but here, Malone does not die even at the end of the novel. As O’Hara contends, Beckett reminds James Joyce, in his continuous experimentation of style, using the witty bleakly colloquial style (2). Malone did not form up any dialogue between any two characters throughout the narration, which constructs a challenge and strength at the same time. Beckett has eliminated most of the essential functions of man, by means of the distortion of plot, climax, psychological and physical development. Beckett, as Federman puts it, succeeds in abstracting the body of the human in his narration through relying on the voice itself. (24) The lack of plot in this narrative becomes highlighted when Malone talks about himself and the story of Sapocast exactly when the story reaches the climax. The subject has been changed without an introduction in the following sentences: “I don't know if they have changed, I don't remember. May the others forgive me. In the fifth Macmann half asleep.” (283), which is a clear indicator for the lack of coherence. This anti-climax comes to an end in a brilliant

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manner, portraying the scene excellently. This term is often used by the critics to highlight a flaw in the narrative process unless if the writer intentionally employs it for humor and elegance The minimal development of the characters, already discussed in Molloy, is to be discerned in the character of Sapo as he shows no development when it comes to narration. Malone as his creator diffuses this development by commenting on its futility even though he had some changes during the fiction: “Sapo had no friends— no, that won't do. “(189) Even though Sapo had friends and he was on good terms with them, Malone tells this to refer to himself, then he retreats: “Sapo was on good terms with his little friends” (189) and then he takes resort to a comparison between himself and Sapo to remind the reader of the identicality of the two characters: “Nothing is less like me than this patient, reasonable child,” (193), as if Sapo reminds Malone of himself. One of the most obvious principles of anti-novel in Malone Dies is the detailed surface analysis. Malone includes considerable detailed analysis of minor objects, those which add to the narrative but unimportant information about the manner of doing something: I remember as I walked along, with my hands deep in my pockets, for I am trying to speak of the time when I could still walk without a stick and a fortiori without crutches, I loved to finger and caress the hard shapely objects that were there in my deep pockets, it was my way of talking to them and reassuring them. And I loved to fall asleep holding in my hand a stone, a horse chestnut, or a cone, and I would be still holding it when I woke. (248) The actions explained here are weird for a reader used to read Romantic and Elizabethan novels as they used to focus on the principles of real life, and how love, hatred, greed, belief, sickness, pain, and relationships contribute to the narration’s being coherent, vivid, influential, and touching. Here, none of these factors is important; the most crucial issue is to demonstrate how man’s’ world is chaotic and absurd due to the expeditiously changing global circumstances.

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2.2.3. Anti-novel in The Unnamable The Unnamable is one of the most appropriate works to be acknowledged as an antinovel. The dispersed narrations of different stories about the characters, with no distribution of any information about them, as far as their names, makes it difficult to follow the course of the story. It lacks an organized plot because the events and dialogues are scattered and ostensibly enjoy no coherence. The unnamable moreover, claims that he is the author of the previous novels. As the author commonly gets stuck saying that ‘I have to go on’, without any actual implementation, he seems to aim at a minimalistic manner to convey his meaning: “I'll forbid myself everything, then go on as if I hadn't.” (312) His will proves to find no accomplishment: “To go on, I still call that on, to go on and get on has been my only care” (320). The previous information calls us to check the ending and the beginning to discover that both are alternatively added to be completed by the reader himself. The author begins with “That is to say I have to go on.” (292) and finishes with “you must go on, I cannot go on, I'll go on.” (414) The absurd mode is implied in the fact that the completely immobile person cannot go on with anything Except trying to go on. Repetition, the next feature to be considered in the work under study, marks the work as an anti-novel. The recurrent uses of words and phrases such as ‘go on’, repeated more than 50 times, ‘Perhaps’, repeated more than 215 times, and ‘I don't know’, repeated 73 times, is not of normal fictional characteristics, in contrast to poetry. The repetitious terms and phrases provide the intuition of absurdity, dullness, and hopelessness. The syntactical and punctuational mistakes in the trilogy is one of the major shared features pinpointing anti-novel. Regardless of the premeditation of using these mistakes and breaks, we mention some of them in an attempt to interpret the reason behind these breaks. Beckett, as Sheringham confirms, has some grammatical breaks and syntactic switches of the 65

speech directions which leave the sentence dangling in the air (76): “and the precipitate steps of my benefactress died away, than the tears began to flow...” (328) It is obvious that ‘then’ was replaced by ‘than’ unintentionally and this might be a typo. The quote “…we made a balls of it between us…” (330) also, has a grammatical point since an indefinite article is added to the plural noun, ‘balls’. On the same page, after two lines, we discover a punctuational error: “…who knows, There you are now…” (330). All these mistakes, committed intentionally or otherwise, account for the strengthening of the anti-novel conception. The investigation, notably in this section, reveals a very meaningful relationship between all the suggested keywords, such as absurdity, syntax, minimalism, Identity, individuality, hopelessness, and despair.

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Conclusion Beckett’s brilliance and genius for bringing about the discussions in such an undoubtably novel style enjoys the most prior position among the findings of this research. The study came to the fact that the extensive use of literary techniques in the corpus of this study not only does not loosen its substance but also is a powerful instrument to provide the works with cohesion both in thematic and syntactic respects. It strengthens the connotation and makes the reader more aware of what will follow. Thus, the use of allusion, allegory, anaphora, epistrophe, flashback, anthropomorphism, colloquialism, foreshadowing, and other techniques, is consistently effective in sustaining the interrelation among the different segments of the works. As a minimalist, Beckett was certainly against stress, strain, and tensions that is surveyed in details throughout the chapters. Beckett's yearning for changes is obvious through his acceptance of the modern style of fictionalizing his works in the form and concept of Antinovel. The claim is supported by various evidences from the works under study, the quintessential example of which to be found in Molloy: “it's good to have a change of muck, to move from one heap to another a little further on” (41). For a clear display of the findings of this research, they are sorted as separate items in what follows: 1- Formalism is the most relevant theory to analyze Beckett’s trilogy, which might arise deferent claims from what has been conveyed in other works. 2- The comedy of this trilogy is normal and not exaggerated contrary to the belief of some critics such as Hirth, despite the fact that the comic tone subverts the traditional form of the novel according to Formalism. 3- Based on the evidences from his critics, Beckett has a crucial role in impregnating modern literature with minimalism as a movement and philosophy.

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4- Beckett fights hopelessness through taking resort to hopelessness itself and its effect on society. 5- Beckett stays against the embellishments and stratification of life by adoption of the characteristics of minimalism and applying them in his trilogy. 6- Critics have misinterpreted Beckett in some respects of his early fictional works relying on the classical approach of the texts’ analysis. 7- Minimalism may be a legitimate tool for authors who try to shed light on controversial issues. 8- The concept of anti-novel, having caught the attention of the modern reader, proves to be promising in bringing about a new revolution in Literature.

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York. 1977. Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of Absurd. 1st ed. Anchor Books. Doubleday Company. Inc. Garden city- New York. 1961. Federman, Raymond. Journey to Chaos: Samuel Beckett’s Early Fiction. University of California Press, Berkeley, and Los Angeles, USA, 1965. Fletcher, John. The Novels of Samuel Beckett. 2nd ed, Barnes & Noble Press, New York, 1970. Hayman, Ronald. World Dramatist: Samuel Beckett. 1st ed, Frederick Ungar Publishing, New York, 1973. Kenner, Hugh. A Reader's Guide to Samuel Beckett. 1st ed., Farrar, Straus, and Giroux Books, 1973. Motte, Warren. Minimalism in Contemporary French Literature. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, and London,1999. O’Hara J.D. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable: A Collection of Critical Essays. Prentice-Hall Cliffs, New Jersey, 1970. O’Neil M. & Akhtar S. Hopelessness: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms. Karnac Books. 2014. Quinn, Edward. A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms.2nd ed, Checkmark Books, USA, 2006. Shaw, Walt. Impotence and Making in Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies and 70

The Unnamable and How It Is. digital ed, Amsterdam, 2010. Sheringham, Michael. Beckett Molloy: Critical Guides to French Texts. 1st ed. Grant & Cutler Press, 1985. Solomon, Philip H. The Life After Birth: Imagery in Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy. 1st ed, Romance Monographs Press, Spain, 1975. Strickland, Edward. Minimalism: Origin. 2nd ed, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, USA, 2000. Webb, Eugene. Samuel Beckett A Study of His Novels. University of Washington Press,1970. Yeoh, Gilbert. J. M. Coetzee and Samuel Beckett: Nothingness, Minimalism and Indeterminacy. Article, Vol. 31 No. 4 (2000): October 2000

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