Self-Transformation in Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy

• Main Authors: Hsiu-chun Tsai, 蔡秀君
• Other Authors: Pei-yun Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/n365e7

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 英文學系碩士班 === 97 === This thesis attempts to explore issues of the self and the other and subjectivity in Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy in light of Lacan’s notion of the mirror stage. The three protagonists’ lack, desire and their dependent relation with their counterparts are my main focuses. The following chapters examine three distinct developments of Auster’s protagonists’ self-transformation in The New York Trilogy. The first chapter discusses Daniel Quinn’s self-transformation in City of Glass with Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage. His endeavors to identify with the other and quest for his subjectivity fail in the end. In Chapter Two, I focus on the doubling relationship between Blue and Black in Ghosts by virtue of Lacan’s notion of the mirror stage and Freud’s idea of the uncanny. In fact, Blue can’t know himself and exist without Black. When Blue annihilates Black, he also brings about his self-destruction. In Chapter Three, the entangled relation between the narrator and his childhood friend, Fanshawe, in The Locked Room is the central concern. Different from the other protagonists, the narrator not only possesses self-understanding but also reconciles his conflicts with Fanshawe and breaks off their doubling relationship which always haunts the narrator. In The New York Trilogy, the other plays an important role for the three protagonists to get closer to their inner psyche and to know themselves. So to speak, the intrusion of the other leads protagonists to discover who they are and who they aren’t and at the same time three protagonists tend to develop ambivalence and emotional tension toward their doubles. From the first to the last story in The New York Trilogy, relations between the subject and the other change from reliance and harmony to aggressive and violent competition. However, physical conflict and mental struggle are all solved in The Locked Room. If we see The New York Trilogy as a whole, the formation of Auster’s protagonists’ subjectivity and quest for the self are frustrated in the beginning but somehow achieved through self-understanding in the end. The Locked Room, which can be considered a potential solution, seems to convey a positive attitude toward the problem of identity and self-knowledge and the possibility to construct subjectivity in The New York Trilogy.