I not in Communion with Self: Subjectivity in Auster’s City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room

Abstract

Paul Auster’s earlier works playfully confuse identities through multi-layer meansof representation. Neither major nor minor characters can independently think of their self asa sovereign entity. This paper is aimed to examine, in practice, the linguistic and socialmechanisms- employed in three stories of Auster, namely City of Glass, Ghosts and TheLocked Room- which are seeking to unsettle the impulse for coherence and oneness ofsubjectivity. Progression of the research relies on a reading strategy developed through thepoststructuralist approaches to text and textuality. At the linguistic level, it is shown thatAuster’s subject(s) are entrapped in a chain of plural and infinite signification. It is indicatedthat due to the lack of stability of subject position and game of signifiers in language, wenever experience I in the authoritative position round the time. Besides, the discussion revealsthat identity of Auster’s living subjects, in the linguistic and social contexts, is defined andredefined constantly through the existence of Other culturally featured.