Paul Auster's 'City of Glass' as a postmodern detective novel (ePub)

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, RWTH Aachen University, language: English, abstract: PAUL AUSTER`s novel 'City of Glass' published in 1985 appeared during the period of the postmodern era.1 Although it is considerably discussed at what time the beginnings of the postmodern era is to be set, it is irrefutable that ¿City of Glass¿ belongs to postmodern literature.

To analyse in how far PAUL AUSTER`s ¿City of Glass¿ serves as a representative of the postmodern era and to show the reader in what way postmodern qualities are converted into the writings of that time, the main part of this paper will be divided up into two sections. The first section serves to define the coming up of this movement and the qualities it possesses within the genre of detective fiction. Furthermore some important idealistic features like the idea of reality and identity have to be taken into consideration. The short introduction of the two identity-constituting models by ERIKSON and MEAD will provide a better overview of the idea of identity formation. Within the second section the novel itself will be taken into consideration. Therefore it is necessary to take a close look at the main character Daniel Quinn and his character development the crisis of his identity in the course of the novel respectively. Besides another striking factor, namely the appearance of doublings and triplings of characters, has to be clarified as well as the role of the narrator. The conclusion at the end of the paper is supposed then to show to what extent ¿City of Glass¿ belongs to postmodern literature and which peculiarities of postmodern writings have been included in this novel.

Since there are just a few recent publications on Paul Auster and his novels three of them namely, An Art of Desire: Reading Paul Auster by BERND HERZOGENRATH, Crisis: The Works of Paul Auster by CARSTEN SPRINGER and the publication of ANNE M. HOLZAPFEL The New York Trilogy: Whodunit?: Tracking the Structure of Paul Auster's Anti-Detective Novels served as the basis for this paper.