Não posso continuar, vou continuar: reflexões sobre a falência da linguagem em Molloy, de Samuel Beckett

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the failure of language based on the analysis of the
novel Molloy, by Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). This novel belongs to the modern
French literature context and, along with other of Beckett’s writings, it is a piece of
great value to understand the paths taken by literature after the rising of Joyce and
Proust. Molloy deals with the uncomfortable ways of incommunicability, the
unavoidable failure that slaps on our face when we try to make ourselves clear. It is
divided into two parts: firstly, we have Molloy’s narrative, with no breaks, no
paragraphs, confusing, but still questioning the possibilities of narrative today; after
that, we have Moran’s narrative. Its beginning attends the conventions of 19th Century
formal realism, but it gradually gets amputated, until it reaches the same expression of
impotence we find in the first part. With the support of some other critics, we assume
that these two narratives are starting points to build some reflections about the
movements of contemporary literature through the waste of impossibility.