Student of English Department
MASARYK UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Bc. Hana Lyčková
The Problem of Identity in Writing by Paul Auster
Master’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D.
2009
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
……………………………………………
Author’s signature
Acknowledgement
I would like to give my special thanks to Jens Fredslund from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, whose seminars on the twentieth-century American fiction inspired me to write my thesis on Paul Auster.
Especially, I want to thank my supervisor Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D. for his help, support, valuable hints, and the loan of The Invention of Solitude.
Table of Contents
Introduction 5
1. Literary Influence on Auster’s Writing 10
2. Writing by Paul Auster as Related to Identity 17 2.1. Autobiographical Features in Auster’s Writing 20
3. The Question of Identity in The Invention of Solitude 23 3.1. Portrait of an Invisible Man 23 3.2. The Book of Memory 26
4. The New York Trilogy 29 4.1. City of Glass 29 4.2. Ghosts 34 4.3. The Locked Room 38
5. Travels in the Scriptorium 46
Conclusion 51
Czech Résumé 59
English Résumé 62
Bibliography 65
Introduction
The present Master’s Diploma Thesis deals with various aspects of identity as they are depicted in three works written by a contemporary American author Paul Auster. He was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1947, started writing poetry and other minor pieces in 1970s, but he did not get the credit in the literary world until the publication of his first non-fiction The Invention of Solitude in 1982. Since 1980s he has continued writing novels that number fifteen volumes up
Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Bc. Hana Lyčková
The Problem of Identity in Writing by Paul Auster
Master’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D.
2009
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
……………………………………………
Author’s signature
Acknowledgement
I would like to give my special thanks to Jens Fredslund from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, whose seminars on the twentieth-century American fiction inspired me to write my thesis on Paul Auster.
Especially, I want to thank my supervisor Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D. for his help, support, valuable hints, and the loan of The Invention of Solitude.
Table of Contents
Introduction 5
1. Literary Influence on Auster’s Writing 10
2. Writing by Paul Auster as Related to Identity 17 2.1. Autobiographical Features in Auster’s Writing 20
3. The Question of Identity in The Invention of Solitude 23 3.1. Portrait of an Invisible Man 23 3.2. The Book of Memory 26
4. The New York Trilogy 29 4.1. City of Glass 29 4.2. Ghosts 34 4.3. The Locked Room 38
5. Travels in the Scriptorium 46
Conclusion 51
Czech Résumé 59
English Résumé 62
Bibliography 65
Introduction
The present Master’s Diploma Thesis deals with various aspects of identity as they are depicted in three works written by a contemporary American author Paul Auster. He was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1947, started writing poetry and other minor pieces in 1970s, but he did not get the credit in the literary world until the publication of his first non-fiction The Invention of Solitude in 1982. Since 1980s he has continued writing novels that number fifteen volumes up
Bibliography: ---. Ghosts. New York: Penguin Books, 1987. ---. Moon Palace. New York: Penguin Books, 1989. ---. The Book of Illusions. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002. ---. The Brooklyn Follies. London: Faber, 2005. ---. The Invention of Solitude. London: Faber, 2005. ---. “The Locked Room.” The New York Trilogy. London: Faber, 1988. ---. The Music of Chance. New York: Penguin Books, 1991. ---. Travels in the Scriptorium. London: Faber, 2006. Contat, Michel, and Paul Auster. “The Manuscript in the Book: Conversation.” Yale French Studies 89 (1996): 160-187. JSTOR. Library of the Masaryk University, Brno. 18 May 2008 . Elliott, Emory, ed. Columbia Literary History of the United States. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Foucault, Michel. “What Is an Author?” The Essential Foucault. New York: The New Press, 2003. 239-253. Holzapfel, Anne M. The New York Trilogy: Whodunit?: Tracking the Structure of Paul Auster’s Anti-Detective Novels. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996. Joseph, John E. Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Leary, Mark R., and June Price Tangney, eds. Handbook of Self and Identity. New York: Guilford Press, 2005. Lucy, Niall. Postmodern Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997. McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge, 1987. Melville, Herman. Bartleby, the Scrivener. Hoboken, N.J.: Melville House Publishing, 2004. Poe, E.A. “William Wilson.” Complete Tales and Poems. Ljubljana: Mladinska Knjiga, 1966. 564-78. Sarup, Madan. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993. Sorapure, Madeleine. “The Detective and the Author.” Barone, Dennis, ed. Beyond the Red Notebook: Essays on Paul Auster. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995. Teodoro, José. “Parallel Worlds: In the Scriptorium with Paul Auster.” Stop Smiling Online. 23 Mar. 2009. Stop Smiling Media, LLC. 15 Oct. 2009. .