How does Samuel Beckett explore the problem of personal identity in Molloy?

In his prose work Molloy, Samuel Beckett explores the problem of personal identity by examining the self from the inside, treating consciousness as a continuous stream of thought. Rather than presenting a traditional narrative, Beckett structures the book as two monologues—one by the dying Molloy and the other by his pursuer, Moran.12

Beckett uses these characters to illustrate the paradox of the self: when an individual reflects on their own existence, they become both the observer and the object being observed. This creates an elusive, receding sense of identity, as the "I" attempting to describe the self is immediately transformed into an object of observation by a new, internal observer. By depicting Molloy and Moran as a pair of observer and observed, Beckett highlights the difficulty of defining a stable, singular "I." Ultimately, he suggests that human consciousness is an endless, shifting stream, making the true nature of the self impossible to pin down.1