Monday, October 29, 2012
Negation
A fundamental part of what I understand is happening in Molloy revolves around the idea of negation or undoing. So often, what Molloy himself says is negated by immediate literal contradiction or by undermining the possibility of his feelings, as in “I felt more or less the same as usual...so terror-stricken that I was virtually bereft of feeling” (p 72). In some cases, this negation seems to be beyond Molloy’s control -- his body steadily becomes unable or even absent. Molloy’s foot (whichever) becomes defined by its lack of toes, his legs by their inability to convey him. In other ways, negation appears to be a definable goal of Molloy, e.g. “I was bent double over a heap of muck, in the hope of finding something to disgust me for ever with eating” (p. 77). I suppose I would ask, what is the purpose of Molloy’s project of writing, why does it seem so crucial to negate statements, experience, and his body?
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Vincent, I have been thinking about this as well. It does seem strange that Molloy would take the time to write all of this out while contradicting and retracting what he says at the same time. The contradictions and retractions Molloy makes reminds me of everyday conversation when people are speaking and thinking too quickly, thus making errors in their speech which is later clarified. I'm not sure if we can think of Molloy like this, since he is writing it all down, and could go back and correct things. I'm not sure if I fully support this answer to your question, but maybe the purpose of Molloy negating his statements is to show that often, we are unable to be completely sure of what happens. So, while Molloy seems to be an untrustworthy narrator, perhaps he is very trustworthy because he is trying to tell us exactly how it is, without glossing over or editing his thoughts/narration.
ReplyDeleteI agree that he seems trustworthy, but maybe more in the sense that he's showing us how narration is more of a negotiation with reality rather than a reflection.
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ReplyDeleteWe could also view his constant retractions as either him not being fully in control of his thoughts (ala schizophrenia) or as a commentary on the inherent inaccuracies of language (though technically these aren't mutually exclusive). It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to say that the texts we've been reading usually contain meta-critiques of literature in some form. The constant negations could be then linked back to the writing process: "that phrase didn't work so try this one" only without deleting anything. Considering that both Molloy and Moran (who is also guilty of contradicting himself) are both writing, such a theory seems plausible (at least to me). In a sense, both characters could be extreme subversion of the "writer-god" trope we saw in "The Waves." Namely, writers are mumbling schizophrenics with type-writers.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to further this dialogue about how negation functions in Molloy by drawing attention to yet another aspect of negation: the "act" of forgetting--a trope which seems to have gone largely undiscussed in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday, we touched on the opposition between loss and preservation as a means by which we might distinguish Molloy's monologue from Moran's; Molloy sets about losing objects and Moran seeks to preserve them. But we may be able to think in more abstract terms here. Me might describe forgetting as a losing--a negation of experience--and remembering as a preservation of experiences that provides a sort of narrative continuity between them. If we link memory in this way to the inscription of identity, as well as meaning (through vibration, repetition), this opposition becomes even more interesting/useful; in forgetting ("actively" not remembering), Molloy empties himself of experience, negates his very identity, while Moran's futile struggle to keep his identity stable reveals the arbitrary nature of that self-definition. We begin to see Moran's identity erode, until it becomes difficult to distinguish him from Molloy--the non-entity. There is a corporeal connection here as well. Book I is about Molloy shitting (metaphorically)--excreting the waste of his experience, of "civilization;" Book II is about Moran eating (partaking of experience) and digesting (ruminating on his experiences). The fact that the digestive directionality is reversed by the novel's form is interesting as well, because it means we start with shitting and return, ultimately, to shit, as the (arbitrary) boundary between Moran and Molloy dissolves.