Molloy's recollections make the human condition seem absurd and pointless, and he implies that human nature seeks certainties without finding any. When the novel begins, Molloy writes, "I am in my mother’s room. It’s I who live there now. I don’t know how I got there." He is uncertain even about how he arrived at his current location.
The point of how he passes the time is also uncertain. He hands a man who arrives at his room pages every week. In return, Molloy receives money. He says that when he receives the pages back, "They are marked with signs I don’t understand. Anyway I don’t read them." The marked pages that he doesn't understand or even read are symbols of the way in which he can't understand or even grapple with his reality. Language also is of no use to him in comprehending the world around him; human nature is such that people can't even make sense of the language they read or hear.
Molloy then begins a very long recounting of a directionless journey he goes on, which symbolizes the directionless and pointless nature of human existence. Beckett implies that human nature is unable to make sense of reality; for example, Molloy can't even remember if his lover's name is Ruth or Edith, and he isn't even sure whether his lover is a woman or man. He says, "Perhaps she too was a man, yet another of them." He goes through experiences without making any real sense of them or understanding them in any way.
The second part of the novel is narrated by Moran, a detective who also has a pointless mission--to find Molloy and write a report. In the end, Moran begins to hear a voice, and he says, "It told me to write the report. Does this mean I am freer now than I was? I do not know." The voice clearly leaves him mentally disordered. He says at the end of the book, "Then I went back into the house and wrote, It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining." In other words, everything he writes does not represent reality, and he is not even clear about the nature of reality. The human condition is such that people are on a pointless and incomprehensible journey.
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