On the face of it, the reading of this beginning raises our interest: we are confronted with a character that lives on the fringe of society and seems to reject it. Apparently called Murphy, an eponymous surname, he is also chained by several fetters. The setting tends to be pretty clear-cut, thus suggesting trite narrative structures strewed of descriptions.
But on second thoughts, there is more to this extract than meets the eye and the reader is justified in thinking that a sort of symbolic dimension is attributed to Murphy. Oddly enough, this latter proves to exceed the mere role of a character. As a result, we could enquire how this contradiction appears throughout the text.
By focusing on the ambiguous reject of all narrative aspect, we could enquire how Murphy is depicted and to what extent he contributes to strengthen a dramatic tension. In the last part, we shall examine the relentless swinging between issues resulting form language and the use of irony, which contributes to raising such discomfort.

As a starting point, it is worth noticing the ambiguity that pervades the openings sentences. If pretence of reality can be picked out, this impression is largely counterbalanced by a loose treatment of Time. That leads finally to understand the non-commitment of Murphy opposed to the world. All things considered, this text deals with an anti-fictional plot and an anti-hero.

Beckett emphasizes that the background is realistic by specifying place names so meticulously as to make it possible for us to locate the character on street-map of London. Some of the details in this passage are acceptably realistic, for instance West Brompton, near South Kensington.
The treatment of the time turns out to call off the endeavour to create a fictional setting as a real and physical world, in which the reader could highly believes. The specific treatment of Time is underlined in the following statement ‘The sun shone’ that gives us a means to imagine the