Demented vs. Creative Emulation in

Abstract

Beckett's notes for in his Notebook, especially his distinction between a and a , allow us to see in Murphy's subservience to a succession of "forces," culminating in his tragicomic effort to emulate Mr. Endon's psychosis, a degraded image of Beckett's own creative emulation of Dante and James Joyce, who serve as his principal literary guides in this novel. Beckett's highly original adaptation of the models bequeathed to him by these predecessors include his pervasive use of chiasmic patterns in and his echoing of the story of Icarus in the narration of Murphy's own doomed flight.