The Negative Nancy
Malone differs from
Molloy in his attitude towards people. Molloy and Malone both deal with death;
Molloy loses his mother while Malone is losing himself. Because Malone nears
death while Molloy observes it, Malone develops a negative view of everyone.
Directly on the second
page, Malone addresses, well, everyone in his life. “Let me say before I go any
further that I forgive nobody. I wish them all an atrocious life and then the
fires and ice of hell and in the execrable generations to come an honoured name”
(174). So basically, Malone curses everyone involved in his life, but blesses
their children. Malone is indeed a queer character, telling himself made-up
stories before he kicks the bucket.
One of said stories
contains a man and a woman. He is equally annoyed with them as he is with his
nurse, the noise of the hospital, etc. “And I shall begin, that they may plague
me no more, with the man and woman” (176). The man and woman do not exist; they
are Malone’s own fictional characters. This fact is crucial because his annoyance
becomes strange and unnecessary.
A Man and a Woman
Malone also holds
others, real people this time, in contempt. In his hospital bed, he is able to
prop himself against the window-pane and look into one room of a house. “I can
see into a room of the house across the way. Queer things go on there
sometimes, people are queer. Perhaps these are abnormal” (178). Malone does not
even bother to say, “Perhaps these [people] are abnormal.” They remain blank
objects, queer and abnormal, which Malone himself is.
I typed in "queer" on youtube and found this?
I was also very interested in the quote from Malone in which he says he wishes all people "...in the execrable generations to come an honoured name.” I thought, at first, that he was wishing their children well. Now I am not so sure.
ReplyDeleteFirst, it seems very unlike Malone to praise anyone. Second, there is the possibility that Malone is making a sort of sick joke with this assertion. He wishes the people an honored name, but only amongst a world that is entirely loathsome. Is it possible he only wishes these people to be honored as wretched even among the wretched?
Belacqua also has a misanthropic streak (see his treatment of his cheese-dealer in "Dante and the Lobster"). Just as Malone, propped up in his bed by the window, labels people ("blank objects," as you call them) abnormal, Belacqua equates social interaction with physical punishment.
ReplyDelete