Written ‘I’ Versus Spoken ‘I’ in Beckett’s Molloy

In Molloy, Beckett had an excessive use of the pronoun “I” at the beginning of many sentences, some of them were successive sentences. 

I am in my mother’s room… I don’t know how I got there… I was helped. I’d never have got there alone… I mean enough to bury. I don’t know… I sleep in her bed. I piss and shit in her pot. I have taken her place. I must resemble her more and more… I’ve forgotten it again… I’ve forgotten how to spell too, … I began at the beginning, like an old ballocks, can you imagine that? … I took a lot of trouble with it…. I don’t know… I don’t know.  (7-8)

All the sentences quoted above, have the pronoun “I” initially, not after another word. As we see, the sentences above were only from the first two pages of the novel. To my interpretation, the excessive use of the pronoun “I” can come into two reasons. The first reason, is to make the reader indulges himself into the situation of the narrator, in other words, to shorten the effort of having a clear overview about the novel in a minimum number of sentences. The excessive use of “I” may save a lot of detailed information which might have been conveyed later on. The second reason is to emphasize on the deteriorated lack of the self-esteem or confidence inside the unfaithful individuals.  

Barry argues that, the written “I” is definitely a different entity from the spoken “I” it appears to be more conventional and fictional to all the other pronouns and subjects. Even in an asserted work of fiction, there is a certain credit on the part of the reader in being addressed as “you”, and in being party to the directness that a first-person pronoun signifies. This adds to the aesthetic part of a fictional modern style in Beckett’s works.