Beckett seems to be obsessed with affirmations and negations that directly follow one another. Molloy, for example, lives in a liminal space between opposites. He states a fact or observation only to immediately negate it. The identities of those around him are not fixed, and he makes a point of consistently changing their names throughout the narrative in order to emphasize their shifting nature.
This structure made me have to choose my own reality in the story--the places, the names, etc, but even after having made a choice I found myself flopping back and forth between one reality and another. For instance: Was it raining or not? Was it midnight or not? After thinking that I had made a choice for raining and midnight (since Beckett had already planted these images in my head) I could not comfortably imagine the scene since the negations kept popping up in my head. I found myself in a doubtful state reminiscent of Molloy's confusion.
Two quotes I found particularly interesting: "I always had a mania for symmetry" (79), and "But I would rather not affirm anything on this subject" (59). Molloy's mania for symmetry may partly explain his inability of providing a conclusive fact, since he must also provide an opposite in order to balance the symmetry.
Beckett also plays with the ambiguity surrounding the identity of Molloy--is he Moran at a different time? Did Moran make him up as a symbol of his decaying sanity?
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