The Story Archive

Malone Dies

Samuel Beckett · 1951 CE · Novel · English · Contemporary

An old man lies in a bare room with a pencil and an exercise book, taking inventory of his few possessions and telling himself stories to use up whatever time is left. The stories keep collapsing back into the teller, and the character he invents to keep himself company begins to sound exactly like him. Written straight after Molloy, in French, as the middle term of the sequence.

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Lineage

Attributes

Genre
PsychologicalTragicomedy
Theme
Death & MortalityMemory & TimeArt & CreationIsolation & AlienationExistential Absurdity
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Anti-HeroWise FoolCreator
Plot structure
ConfessionMetafictionNonlinear / Fractured
Quest object (Greimas)
Art / Creation
Symbol / motif
The Book / ManuscriptThe PrisonThe Clock
Conflict
vs Self
Mode / tone
AbsurdistIronicModernist
Culture / tradition
English

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