Crafted Identities: A Psychoanalytical Reading of Paul Auster’s City of Glass

Abstract:

We currently live in a postmodern society in which the ever-challenging problem of self-cohesive identity, individuality, diversity, scepticism and innovation is on the rise. On an average, society is becoming more and more tolerant of new ideas and ways of thinking as opposed to remaining committed to supposedly objective truths established by previous generations. Paul Auster’s City of Glass deals with many transactions of the concept of identity in postmodern society. It proclaims a set of wondrous mazes of identity, peopled with mysterious observers, authorial surrogates, mirrors facing mirrors and persons missing in one degree or another. Identity, gender and mythology are essential components of the fabric of human society as we know it. Our society is made up of stories and narratives, those that are told to us and those that we craft for ourselves. In this study, the objective is to study how society addresses them and how we investigate those narratives, often leading us to greater insights into our individual and collective psyches, bringing us closer to answers regarding the essential nature of mankind and our mythology. This is the method of this paper. The process by which we determine and craft our importance to the community at large will be investigated.

Keywords:

Paul Auster, City of Glass, identity, psychoanalysis, post-modernism, gender studies

Citation: Mohammad Amin Shirkhani (2023). Crafted Identities: A Psychoanalytical Reading of Paul Auster’s City of Glass. Horizon J. Hum. Soc. Sci. Res. 5 (1), 151–157. https://doi.org/10.37534/bp.jhssr.2023.v5.n1.id1216.p151