Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1986

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Hokenson, Jan W.

Abstract

Critics of Beckett's trilogy (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable) have long puzzled over the profusion of bilabials in the characters' names: Molloy, Moran, Malone, Macmann. They all share a common initial. "Les Tripedes de la Trilogie" attempts to offer yet another interpretation: with its three bases, the letter M suggests in the context of the trilogy a man and his stick, reminiscent to Beckett of the three-legged "animal" in the riddle of the Sphinx. The omnipresent stick, in both its physical and symbolic functions, is shown to be the crucial instrument keeping the unstable Beckettian creatures briefly upright in their "struggle for life." As an extension of the body, it allows them to fight and to survive. As a cylindrical rod, it acquires metaphysical associations with divine or supernatural power.

Extent

49 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1986.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Identifier

FADT14293

Format

pdf

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