Narrative technique in Samuel Beckett's trilogy
Date
1985
Authors
Cornborough, Katherine Gail
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Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to consider how one can approach the unusual fictional world of Samuel Beckett without being lost in its strangeness, because the medium through which we perceive this world is the voices of the various narrators, familiarization with the appearance and roles of these narrators would seem a good place to begin such a study This thesis begins with a consideration of the philosophical concepts from which the Beckettian narrators might have sprung I refer to the notions of Schopenhauer, a nineteenth-century philosopher, and those of Genette and Barthes, both modern critics After setting up a critical paradigm based on the works of these people, I then move on to a discussion of the individual works which compose the trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable In this section of the thesis I discuss a transition in the countenance and role of each narrator throughout the work Finally, in the last chapter of the thesis, I discuss the comic effect achieved by the narrators as they are used, and again, the transition which occurs throughout the work in this comic tone relative to the narrators.