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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What smell does Molloy say he associates with Lousse?

2. What does Molloy say is “not an easy matter” (24)?

3. What does Molloy say his mother smelled like?

4. How does Molloy characterize Lousse?

5. How does Molloy characterize his own appearance?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the relationship between Molloy and his mother’s money?

2. How does Molloy characterize Lousse’s physical appearance, and what did she have in common with Edith/Ruth?

3. How does Molloy characterize his relationship with his body below the waste?

4. What is Molloy’s relationship with writing?

5. What does Molloy say keeps him going?

6. How long was Molloy on the road before he met Lousse, and how long did he stay with Lousse?

7. What is Molloy’s character like?

8. What does Molloy like about being at the seashore?

9. How does Molloy describe his relationship with society, through his detention?

10. How does Molloy characterize his experience with the charcoal burner in the forest?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the role of women in Molloy, or of parents? How do Molloy and Moran treat the people around them, and what do they expect of women? Are they ‘normal’ men who expect ‘normal’ things of women, or are they ambiguous or asexual? What role does physical or emotional love play in Molloy, whether it is between men or women?

Essay Topic 2

Molloy is a book in which Beckett has created a world for his character to live in, but it is a world that only sometimes resembles our world of experiences and observations. What are the advantages and disadvantages of creating a whole world for a character, with rules that apply only to that world, and are not even always explained? Is this an ultimately fruitful enterprise for Beckett, or does the artificiality of the enterprise work against him? Take a position on one side or the other.

Essay Topic 3

When is Molloy most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

(see the answer keys)

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