Article: Labor, alienation, and the status of being: the rhetoric of indolence in Beckett's Murphy.(Samuel Beckett's novel)(Critical Essay)

First published in 1938 after being rejected by forty-two publishers, Samuel Beckett's novel Murphy presents a highly subversive drama, one that recounts the title character's unyielding effort to avoid seeking employment in the London job market, as eagerly advised by his lover, Celia. From her first appearance in the novel, Celia is preoccupied with her endeavor to talk Murphy into finding a job that might pay "even a small salary" (56), and to this end she does not spare whatever tactic is available, including the warning to withdraw her love and abandon him (35). (1) In an effort to subvert Celia's rhetoric of work and thereby dodge the job market, Murphy resorts to a ...

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