AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

This paper examines the self and the mentality of the postmodern self within the fiction novel ‘City of Glass’ by Paul Auster (2011). The main assumption is that the protagonist Daniel Quinn is influenced by, firstly the city he lives in namely New York and secondly by radically changes in his social relations. This project seeks to investigate how Paul Auster through the ‘City of Glass’ expresses and challenges the view of the self. Furthermore we want to investigate how the postmodern author, Paul Auster, uses the narrator in order to influence the story’s plot and setting. This is done through an investigation and research of narratology and the narrative within fiction, the postmodern vs. postmodernism, the self and the consequences or risks of living in a postmodern age, seen from both a poststructuralists point of view, Anthony Giddens, and a social constructionist point of view, Kenneth Gergen. This is investigated by the use of a hermeneutic approach. With this we come to the conclusion that Paul Auster uses several different narrative techniques in order to present the social dilemmas for the individual Daniel Quinn, living under postmodern conditions. This results in the reader getting a greater understanding of the postmodern consciousness.