Murphy

Murphy, an Irishman living in London, sits naked in a rocking chair in his condemned lodging in West Brompton, bound to the chair by seven scarves. The ritual gives his body pleasure, which frees his mind to retreat into a private inner world. He studied under Neary, a self-styled Pythagorean from Cork who could stop his own heart at will, but Neary declared he could do nothing for Murphy. The telephone rings: It is Celia, Murphy's lover, telling him she has the item he asked for. He tries to put her off, but she insists on coming.

Celia, whose parents died in the sinking of the Morro Castle, works as a prostitute. Her bedridden grandfather, Mr. Willoughby Kelly, does not oppose this vocation. She met Murphy one midsummer evening on a London street, and their love was immediate. He proposed in Battersea Park, but months later they remain unmarried because Murphy earns nothing. His meager income depends on his landlady sending inflated bills to his uncle in Holland, which cannot support two people. Murphy insists he is constitutionally unable to work. Celia gives him an ultimatum: Find work or she will return to prostitution. Murphy agrees but asks her to procure a horoscope from a swami first.

Arriving that night, Celia finds Murphy overturned beneath his rocking chair, bloodied from a heart attack that tipped the apparatus over. She frees him and puts him to bed. In the morning she gives him the horoscope. The natal chart, cast under the sign of the Goat, recommends careers including custodian and explorer, with Sunday as lucky day and four as lucky number. Murphy twists the chart into a reason to delay, noting the first Sunday falling on the fourth will not come for a year. They argue. He insists that working will destroy him. Celia repeats her ultimatum, and Murphy capitulates.

Meanwhile in Dublin, Neary has shut down his teaching academy in despair. Wylie, a small man who becomes his ally, finds him dashing his head against the statue of Cuchulain, a legendary Irish warrior, at the General Post Office, and rescues him. Neary fell for Miss Counihan, an Irish woman who declared herself pledged to Murphy, claiming Murphy went to London to make his fortune. She refused him unless he could prove Murphy's death or failure. Neary sent his servant Cooper, a one-eyed man who never sits down, to London to find Murphy, but Cooper located and then lost him. Wylie devises a plan: Neary will go to London while Wylie stays to cultivate Miss Counihan.

Murphy and Celia move to Brewery Road, Islington. Their new landlady, Miss Carridge, refuses to inflate bills, cutting off Murphy's income. Murphy goes out daily pretending to seek work but wanders aimlessly. He encounters Austin Ticklepenny, a former Irish pot poet now miserable as a male nurse at the Magdalen Mental Mercyseat (MMM), a mental hospital on the outskirts of London. Ticklepenny wants to quit but cannot leave before his probation ends without forfeiting his wages. Seeing a convergence between his horoscope's recommendation of custodian and the hospital's connection to lunacy, Murphy offers to replace Ticklepenny.

The novel describes Murphy's conception of his own mind as a hollow sphere sealed from the outside world, containing three zones. The first, lit and active, replays and reverses the humiliations of bodily life. The second, half-lit, offers contemplative peace, what Murphy calls "Belacqua bliss" after the indolent figure in Dante's Purgatorio. The third is dark: a flux of becoming and dissolution where Murphy is a mote in absolute freedom. This last zone increasingly draws him.

Above their room, a retired butler cuts his throat and dies. His overhead pacing had become part of Celia's daily rhythm, and its absence disturbs her. Murphy tells her he has a job prospect and departs one Sunday for the MMM. Celia watches from the window as he hesitates at the gate, then walks away. He does not return.

At the hospital, Murphy is signed on under head male nurse Bim Clinch and assigned to the male ward of Skinner's House. He chooses a private garret and insists on heat. Ticklepenny rigs a gas radiator connected to a disused jet in the lavatory below, with no shutoff valve at the radiator end. Murphy feels no horror at the patients, recognizing in their indifference the mental withdrawal he has always sought. Patients who refuse food for other nurses comply willingly for him. He becomes attached to Mr. Endon, a man with schizophrenia on suicide watch for attempting to stop his own breathing. Murphy and Mr. Endon play slow chess games throughout the day, each making moves in the other's absence.

Celia moves into the dead man's room, entering states resembling Murphy's mental retreat. Murphy comes while she is out, takes his bag and rocking chair, and leaves no message. Cooper, now back in London with Wylie and Miss Counihan, tracks Celia to Brewery Road. Neary, Wylie, and Miss Counihan converge on the lodgings and meet Celia. She tells them plainly that she is a prostitute and that Murphy had to leave her, the last attachment he needed to shed. They settle in to wait.

On his first night shift, Murphy plays a long chess game with Mr. Endon. Mr. Endon plays what amounts to private solitaire, methodically returning his pieces to their starting positions, indifferent to Murphy's moves. Murphy surrenders and gazes into Mr. Endon's eyes. In the cornea he sees only his own image, horribly reduced. Mr. Endon does not see him at all. Murphy realizes that while Mr. Endon was bliss for Murphy, Murphy was merely chess for Mr. Endon. He leaves the building, strips naked, lies in the wet grass, and tries to visualize anyone from his life. He fails.

He hurries to his garret and ties himself into the rocking chair. Gas begins flowing from the radiator: Someone or something has turned on the jet in the lavatory below, where no one is about. Murphy rocks faster and faster. His body grows quiet. He dies.

The group travels to the MMM to identify Murphy's burned remains. The coroner rules death a misadventure. Only Celia can make the identification: She has the body turned over and points to a large birthmark on the charred buttock. Neary reads Murphy's last wish: cremation, the ashes brought in a paper bag to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and flushed down the toilet during a performance. Neary pays and hands Cooper the ashes. Cooper, freed from his lifelong compulsion against sitting, enters a pub and sits down for the first time in over 20 years. Drunk, he throws the ashes at another patron. They scatter across the floor and by morning are swept away with the sand, beer, butts, and vomit.

In the final scene, Celia wheels Mr. Kelly to Kensington Gardens to fly his kite. She has returned to prostitution. Mr. Kelly flies the crimson silk kite until it vanishes from sight, then dozes. The winch slips from his fingers, the string snaps, and the kite disappears into the dusk. Celia catches him as he staggers toward the pond, puts him back in his chair, and wheels him home as park rangers call their closing cry. She closes her eyes.