Way To The Absolute Freedom:a Thematic Study Of Murphy

Samuel Beckett’s novels are as remarkable as his plays, which, with theanti-traditional and experimental features, are distinctive in the contemporary literaryworld. As Beckett’s first important novel, Murphy was written in1935, and waspublished in London in1938. It not only reflects his world view, attitude towards lifeand writing style, but also shows the basic mode of his novel writing, foreshadowingthe development of his later novels. Among Beckett’ s novels, Murphy is the mostphilosophical and most obscure one, which is written in the third person omniscientpoint of view describing the adventures and mental changes of a run-downintellectual named Murphy, who flees from Ireland to London to seek an ideal life.This thesis is divided into three parts. The first chapter deals with Murphy’sview of the world, life and value and discusses the purity and soberness of Murphy ina filthy world, which reveals Murphy’s desire of abandoning the outside world andfocusing on the Self so as to achieve the state of freedom. The second chapteranalyzes the conflicts between Murphy’s mind and body. The further yearning forspiritual freedom makes Murphy despise the body. The third chapter mainlydiscusses the “three zones” in Murphy’s mind: bright, semi-bright and dark zones,and analyzes the contradictions and limitations of these three different regions in hisdeep mind. Murphy’s yearning for the absolute freedom eventually drives him topursue the eternal freedom (death) instead of the temporary mental freedom.Through textual analysis of the novel, this paper reveals how the protagonistMurphy makes choices between social reality and the Self, the body and the mind,and he ultimately achieves absolute freedom and reaches the bliss in the form of death, thus the novel reveals Beckett’s philosophical meditation on human existence.Murphy marks a prelude to Beckett’s novel experiments and lays a foundation for hislater dramas and novels in terms of themes.