Shattering the Illusion: Metafiction and Ontological Uncertainty in SamuelBeckett’s Trilogy

This study investigates Samuel Beckett's trilogy—Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable—utilizing Patricia Waugh's concept of metafiction, as outlined in her work, Metafiction: The Theoryand Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. In these novels, Beckett presents a bleak portrayal of thehuman condition in the years following World War II, while simultaneously pondering upon thelimits of language and fiction as communicative and interpretative systems. Drawing on PatriciaWaugh’s theoretical framework, this study will examine the ways in which Beckett draws thereaders’ attention to the futility of the quest for meaning in his fiction, and lays bare the conventionsand the structure of the very medium in which he is writing. Analyzing Beckett’s use of unreliablenarrators, this paper attempts to situate Beckett’s trilogy within the discourses of postmodernistfiction and examine these three novels as exemplars of metafictional writing

Shattering the Illusion: Metafiction and Ontological Uncertainty in SamuelBeckett’s Trilogy Keywords:

Samuel Beckett , Metafiction , Postmodernism , Ontological Uncertainty , UnreliableNarrator