Metamorphic perceptions of reality from modernism to postmodernism in Samuel Beckett's novels

This dissertation focuses on Samuel Beckett's novels to reveal how the concept of reality is metamorphosed through subjective perceptions. The influences of both modernism and postmodernism are traced to better investigate how the concept of reality is experienced and expressed in Beckett's novels. Studying Beckett's controversial literary style from the perspective of subjective perceptions reveals how his novels transcend and expand the limits of the novel genre. Furthermore, Beckett's novels challenge and reconceptualise the manner in which reality is perceived in twentieth century English literature owing to Beckett's unique understanding of the concepts of time, space, action, existence and identity. The scope of the study covers Beckett's novels from the first to the last in order to better situate Beckett's stance as an author. Therefore, the study is divided into four chapters, the first of which introduces the origins, the dialectic and dialogic stance of the novel genre while tracing how the concept of reality is perceived through modernism and postmodernism. The second chapter is on how experimental techniques aid Beckett in creating alternative perceptions of time, space and action in his novels Dream of Fair to Middling Women, Mercier and Camier and How It Is, respectively. The third chapter explores Murphy and Watt in relation to existential phenomenology while the last chapter focalizes how the characters in the novels Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable manifest the process of identity formation in a metamorphic manner.