The Dialectic of Self and Other in Paul Auster’s Moon Palace

• Main Authors: Hui-Chih Lin, 林蕙芝
• Other Authors: Chun-san Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/90664917296111346102

碩士 === 亞洲大學 === 外國語文學系 === 102 === In the field of literature, science fiction or magic realism has taken a solid position in the later part of the twentieth century. In contrast, literary texts like those in the nineteenth century in which realism was celebrated are fewer and fewer. Paul Auster, who has recently become a well-known American writer, is one of these few writers, and most of his works are in-depth exploration of life’s possibilities and often characterized by a narrative full of digressions and anachronism. Life’s ups and downs faced by the protagonist are a recurrent theme in his works. His writing style is similar to that of Franz Kafka, a famous novelist in the twentieth century. Auster’s Moon Palace (1989) has combined the themes of traveling and self-searching. Based on the study of these two themes, this thesis focuses primarily on the examination of the disengagement of Marco Stanley Fogg, the protagonist of the novel, with reality. First, the thesis examines how the National Symbolic re-writes original and uncertain subject, and then empowers it with the legal position to keep the community on hold. Second, the differences between transcendental national representation and the subject’s feelings are to be discussed. Finally, the thesis explores how the subject interrupts national narrative through space imagination and the manifestation of his own heterogeneity. The conclusion of this thesis is that the national map will possibly be changed by the traveler’s itinerary.