„Molloy” (1951) de S. Beckett sau Scriu, deci exist… s-ar părea, nu știu, poate
„Molloy” (1951) by S. Beckett or, „I write, therefore I exist… seemingly, I don’t know, maybe”
From the abnormalities of the discursive structures to the ”abnormals” of literature, this paper launches a theme for thought to what was dichotomized as an agreed opposition between the normal(-ity) vs. the abnormal(-ity); norm vs. deviance; autistic/alienated vs. alive/normal. Society and the invention of the public sphere, the intensifying of guilt in relation to one’s self – as the Nietzchean bad conscience – emerge at the dawn of modernity as primary causes of what will be incriminated as a deviant-self /deviance and saught to be ”corrected” mainly by a strict control of the body as M. Foucault considered. Modernity brings on the social scene a phenomenon sociologists referre to as the ”self-reflexive identity” (cf. A. Giddens).
In modern literature, this modern self, the ”individual actor” who reflects on the essence of humanity itself, tries to find out what it means ”to-be-yourself” with the help of the alienated reason: deviance as ontological crisis, as a condensed expression of one’s isolation understood as loneliness. Thus the tension between reason and passion is no longer dichotomous, but co-inclusive in the narratives of the self – seen as projections towards a powerful ”inside” of the being, and not – as “Freudically” was thought to be – a withdrawal from reality. This is what I have analysed in the study bellow, following the mirage of the literary machine from S. Beckett’s “Molloy” and the new type of character it proposes, Molloy as Homo Natura, a genuine ”producer of intensive quantities” (apud. G. Deleuze & F. Guattari).
Keywords: Molloy, Samuel Beckett, Deleuze & Guattari, modernity, identity crisis, stigma, norm, deviance, abnormality, control, corporality, autistic, Homo Natura, anti-Oedipian, intensive quantities, desiring machines
Samuel Beckett – Molloy. Nuvele și Texte de neființă. Cum e. Mercier și Camier / Molloy. Short Stories and Texts for Nothing. How It Is. Mercier and Camier (translated by Gabriela și Constantin Abăluță, afterword by Constantin Abăluță), Univers, București, 1990.
Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari – L’Anti-Œdipe (Capitalisme et schizofrenie) / Anti-Oedipus (Capitalism and Schizophrenia), Nouvelle édition augmentée (I ed.1972), Les Editions de Minuit, Collection “Critique”.
Michel Foucault – Anormalii. Cursuri ținute la College de France 1974 -1975 / Abnormals. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974-1975, Univers, București.
Anthony Giddens – Modernitatea și identitatea de sine. Sinele și societatea în Epoca Modernă Târzie / Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1991.
Richard Jenkins – Identitatea socială / Social Identity (translated by Alex Butucelea), Univers, București, 2000.
