Crippling Crutches Disability as "Narrative Prosthesis" in Samuel Beckett's Molloy

While the bicycle in Samuel Beckett's Molloy has received considerable critical attention, the crutches have largely eluded attention. The present essay examines, accordingly, in what ways the crutches are not simply a means for Molloy to compensate for his stiff leg(s) but might be said to constitute his very 'end' in the double sense of the word: his death as a human being and his function or purpose as a technical being, as a body of linguistic conventions working to create the illusion of a human being.