10
Colin Moore ’06
Submitted for consideration for the James Augustine Healy Prize
March 31, 2005
Using The Dual Nature of Sticks to Unravel Lemuel’s Murder Scene
In Samuel Beckett’s Molloy and Malone Dies
In all of his works, Beckett helps define his characters by giving them accessories that have an allegorical as well as physical existence. Some characters wear hats, others wear boots, and others carry sticks. Sticks often reflect ambiguously on their carriers because they come in a variety of shapes and flavors. Shapes include the basic stick, the umbrella, and the pencil, to name a few; flavors include the oppressive and the genuinely helpful stick. Deciding which stick a character has and how he uses it introduces a new way of understanding that character’s choices and interactions with the other Beckett characters as they live out the perpetual tragicomedy of life. In treating Molloy and Malone Dies, two novels in sequence, we can build towards a thorough understanding of the two stories by analyzing the final scene in Malone with Lemuel. By understanding first the negative view of sticks and then the secondary view, we can then prove that Lemuel is a character who, and his axe is an accessory that, resists the normal binaries of the text but is ultimately defined as the most villainous.
To begin to understand the negative (or primary) view of sticks, we must first understand Beckett’s belief that people become enlightened by hitting bottom. Beckett’s visual application of the letter M[i] helps explain this point. In the beginning of Molloy, Moran spies two men walking towards each other, but “to say they knew each other, no, nothing warrants it” (Molloy 9). Moran admits that “they looked alike” (Molloy 9) and later fails to differentiate, remarking “A or C, I don’t remember” (Molloy 11) when spying a man again. While a notion of latent kindred fellowship is perhaps a stretch, it becomes apparent that these men are similar enough to know each other, yet they do not. The two men move towards each other across the “undulating land” (Molloy 9) and finally between “two crests, riven by a valley” (Molloy 10). Finally the two men, who were previously “unconscious of what they were doing” (Molloy 8) now “went down into the same trough and in this trough finally met” (Molloy 9). An image of the M forms: the two peaks and in between: the pit of discovery. The result of meeting in the pit is a new camaraderie, as Moran anticipates that “now I think they will know each other, greet each other, even in the depths of town” (Molloy 9). Seeing as the two men A and C, “looked alike, but no more than others did” (Molloy 9), the overall picture suggests that all men, not just A and C, would otherwise be friendlier and more in touch with their fellows if they could shed the unconscious behavior that rules their lives by meeting in the pit, a place which is too harsh to support continued denial. The pit can free a character who “[crawls] on his belly, like a reptile” and who “no sooner comes to rest than he begins to rest” (Molloy 90), and lives a life of indifference, anonymity and neutrality, numb to horror in a generic way.
The stick is frequently the object which prevents a character from reaching the pit and keeps them in the crawling state, miserable yet unconvinced that change is needed. Moran describes C as having an “uncertain step” (Molloy 9), as possessing a “loitering indolence” (Molloy 11) and giving “anxious looks” (Molloy 13) all about him. Not surprisingly, C carries “a stout stick, he used it to thrust himself onward, or as a defense” (Molloy 10). With stick in hand, “he went in fear” (Molloy 10) even though “there was nothing they could do to him, or very little” (Molloy 10). C’s fear, anxiety and innocence are all bolstered by his use of the stick, or more specifically, his fear and anxiety revolving around discovering what he is innocent of. Moran continues by claiming that “to restore silence is the role of objects” (Molloy 13), a statement which sums up the oppressive nature of sticks rather succinctly. As far as we wish to treat sticks as a metaphor for language, we learn additionally that “you would do better, at least no worse, to obliterate texts than to blacken margins, to fill in the holes of words till all is blank and flat and the whole ghastly business looks like what it is, senseless, speechless, issueless misery” (Molloy 13). Our image of negative sticks becomes more focused as we see that a person can abuse language to the point where a vacuum illustrates as much as a crowded page. Negative sticks represent the kind of canned and cliched language which grants people the ability to ignore suffering and death and disallows them to feel these things in any meaningful or liberating way. At this stage in the novels, Beckett treats sticks and language as oppressive and controlling forces which keep an individual from getting fed up enough to make a real change.
In Moran we see the same inertness, “for in me there have always been two fools...one asking nothing better than to stay where he is and the other imagining that life might be slightly less horrible a little further on” (Molloy 48), where both fools are really the same entity. The man who plods on hopelessly, trying to get ‘a little further on,’ in fact opts to stay the same by virtue of not changing course. Malone also proclaims sullenly that “I shall be tepid” (Malone 179) when discussing his new life plan, in which he promises “I shall be natural at last, I shall suffer more, then less, without drawing any conclusions, I shall pay less heed to myself” (Malone 179). Sticks allow Malone to master his environment, but like Belaqua (of Beckett’s “Dante and the Lobster”) and his obliterated lunch, it is a faux-mastery. Malone exclaims pathetically that “when I want to eat I hook the table with my stick...it comes squeaking and lurching towards me” (Malone 184). However this fetching of the food only matters to Malone because “what matters is to eat and excrete” (Malone 185), showing his loving devotion to his place as an impotent shell. Thanks to the stick, Malone “can control the furthest recesses of [his] abode” (Malone 185), but this merely keeps him a complacent big fish in a little pond.
However, as the two texts are basically giant meta-fictions, the stories are not without their positive examples of sticks and language. If we are meant to view the survival and eventual reading of the text Malone/Moran write as positive, then we must view writing positively at some point and on certain terms. Accordingly, Beckett praises the process of writing and the harnessing of language to correct oppressive language with the accessory of Malone’s pencil. When trying to fetch his pencil, Malone notes naively that “what my stick lacks is a little prehensile proboscis” (Malone 222), as if a late-model stick will really solve all his problems. Fully doped by the minimal luxury he enjoys on account of his hooked stick, Malone says mistakenly that “I should really lose my pencil more often” (Malone 222) because “it might do me good, I might be more cheerful, it might be more cheerful” (Malone 222). But in reality, since he was given his stick by one of his orderlies, we can assume that the stick’s inability to properly retrieve an item such as a pencil reflects positively on the pencil. The pencil becomes forbidden fruit in this way, not meant to be recovered by the bed-ridden Malone whose stick is specially built to sustain his ‘eating and shitting’ existence, and not his writing. Yet even upon recovery, Beckett presents us with a pessimistic view of the future, as Malone laments that “little by little my pencil dwindles, inevitably...So I write as lightly as I can” (Malone 223). Thus the power gained by harnessing the pencil is not unlimited but capped.
Sticks can have a natural effect of hypnosis which causes the user to become accustomed to an environment that would otherwise be intolerable (crutch). A stick can also empower someone to make change and provide real support instead of limiting a user to an undesirable situation (pencil). Thus we have opposing functions of sticks in the Beckett universe. There exists a third kind of stick, which could be classified as a subcategory within the ‘liberating’ stick camp or a combination of both: the self-sought stick. At the end of Molloy we see Moran facing the elements armed with only an umbrella, and a damaged one at that. Unable to decide between using the umbrella “as a support” or “as a shelter,” he observes that “I could of course have made myself a stick, out of a branch, and gone on...but I did not, I do not know why” (Molloy 171), showing his inexplicable reluctance to fashion his own implement. Despite the fact that “all that remained of the canopy of my umbrella was a few flitters of silk” (Molloy 171), we learn than Moran was “accustomed...to the perfect watertightness of [his] expensive umbrella” (Molloy 171). We see a man who is reluctant to admit the inferiority of his purchased stick and his reluctance to easily synthesize a replacement because the umbrella was, at one point, top of the line and pricey. Thus Moran’s choice not to fashion his own stick can be traced back to his patronage of the established order: an appreciation of fine things regardless of functionality, umbrellas in this case.
With this third kind of stick in mind we can begin to discuss the final scene of Malone Dies. The excursion’s cheerful facade is conjured by the high culture figure, Lady Pedal, who “wore by the way of earrings two long ivory crucifixes which swayed wildly with the least movement of her head” (Malone 257). The joke and thus the commentary seems to be that only slight head movement, or ‘brain use’ is needed to send high-minded religiousness into a tailspin. Seeing how “she informed Macmann, when he did something, if that thing was permitted or not” (Malone 257), we can understand Pedal as the moral authority of the group and the person who represents the order and fettered language which all of Beckett’s low characters struggle against (or forget to struggle against). As Lemuel polices Macmann and others according to the will of Pedal, we might understand him as the fascist taskmaster, or the enforcer, behind Pedal’s flowery agenda.
Pedal’s perspective of sticks ought to be the primary one: sticks help keep order by doping their users and immunizing them to the effects of serious tragedy. Once properly medicated, religious dogma can be administered effectively. Thus it would be safe to assume that the presence of sticks, to Pedal, would seem positive and even helpful (because she would approve of the role of primary/negative sticks). Yet when “one evening Macmann went back to his cell with a branch torn from a dead bramble, for use as a stick to support him as he walked” (Malone 275), we see Lemuel reciprocating harshly, as he “took it from him and struck him with it over and over again” (Malone 275). This is especially surprising considering Lemuel’s lack of response later on the island when “the youth...was grabbing feebly at the umbrella” (284) but Lemuel does not respond in any way. Ought he not chastise the youth as well as Macmann for pursuing a stick actively? If the stick is a force of hegemony, then Lemuel should let Macmann have it, or two, or three, so long as it keeps the order. But he rebukes him. If the stick is an empowering force and Lemuel takes it away, he should have rightly chastised the young one for grabbing at the umbrella and committing the same sin of attempted liberation. No, the issue here is not about deciding between the oppressive or enlightening properties of Macmann’s taboo stick, but the way in which is was fashioned: autonomously. Macmann did what Moran was unable to do when stranded with his faulty umbrella. He improvised, rather than patronizing convention.
When we understand that Lemuel’s anger at Macmann was centered around his autonomous action and not related specifically to which category of stick Macmann’s enters in to, we get a better sense of why Lemuel kills at the close of Malone Dies. Lemuel “went up behind Maurice...and killed him with the hatchet” and later “Lemuel killed [Ernest] in his turn” (Malone 287), but both actions seem to come out of nowhere even as they are lauded by Lemuel’s sycophants. Looking back however, and keeping Macmann’s rebellion in mind, we see Pedal experiencing a sudden attack of conscience, insisting “the poor creatures...let them loose” (Malone 286), to which “Maurice made to obey” (Malone 286). A bit earlier we notice “one of the sailors leaned towards Lemuel and said, She wants to know if you’re the one in charge” (Malone 285), to which Lemuel responds brusquely “fuck off” (Malone 285). Not long after these two incidents, Lemuel kills both sailors, and upon seeing Pedal fainted with a broken hip, sets off without her. Lemuel is ultimately not loyal to Pedal, or her order, though he usually operates to preserve it. Following the departure from the island, “Lemuel is in charge” (Malone 288) of the five underlings whom Pedal had tried to set free moments earlier. Having dispatched the servants of his competitor and watched his competitor implode at the sight of real violence, Lemuel is most definitely in charge. Lemuel commits murder when his rank, status, and control are threatened by the mere spokesperson for the status quo he works so hard to maintain.
Lemuel exists as the most bitter character in the Molloy / Malone Dies, and arguably all of Beckett, because he appears to be the only character who fully understands the established order and yet works as its henchman most of the time, and even his own disciplinarian, known for having “produced a hatchet from under his cloak and dealt himself a few smart blows on the skull, with the heel, for safety” (Malone 285). The sickness required for both understanding the system of oppression and yet fully participating in it makes Lemuel an Uncle Tom who finally snaps, but not to turn on his masters and free his brethren, but to initiate a massive coup in the middle of a picnic and become even more powerful in the same dastardly power cell. We see the weakness in Pedal; Lemuel does not need to kill her like he killed the sailors. She has fallen, perhaps for all time. As discussed previously, the pit or the ground is usually where characters come to realize the horror and then adapt, but Pedal and her high culture allegory proved too brittle to rebound after bottoming out. When she is Established as no longer threatening, Lemuel can leave her to die.