Quickened mirrors: The function of the Doppelgaenger in Paul Auster's New York trilogy

Paul Auster's detective work, The New York Trilogy, explores the problem of the identity of the postmodern writer. The quest in these novels is not to find a person or object; rather, is it is the search for a way in which the writer's ego can be sustained while he is creating the text. This theme is exemplified through the use of the doppelganger and the outcome of the protagonists' relationship to their doppelgangers.;The theoretical basis for the trilogy's theme can be found in the work of the French literary theorist, Maurice Blanchot. In this thesis, the link between Blanchot's theories and Paul Auster's work is investigated. Blanchot posits that the creation of literary text requires a suppression of the writer's "I" and that this poses a hazard to the writer's sense of self-awareness. Paul Auster demonstrates this through the device of the doppelgangers who appear out of the void created by the suppression of the writer/protagonists' egos. These doppelgangers control the protagonists through the text that is being created.;Additionally, alienation related to the psychological and physical setting exacerbates this problem. New York City proves to be a key factor in estranging the protagonists as it both affects their relationships with people and is abstracted into text through the filtering consciousnesses of the narrators and the protagonists.;In the quest to retain the ego of the writer/protagonists, Auster subverts the usual structure of the doppelganger story in the romance tradition. His doppelgangers do not fit into the typical binary paradigm; there is no real sense of hierarchy. Auster also takes the themes of descent into and ascent from mystical realms found in the romance quest and applies them to descent into and ascent from the text.;Ascent in the romance would imply that the quest has been successful, but in The New York Trilogy, the problem set forth defies authoritative explanation. Ascent is briefly attempted and fails in the first two novels, City of Glass and Ghosts, and is only partially successfully in the final novel, The Locked Room. Therefore, the first two books do not have a resolution, and the final book has only a tentative solution. In The Locked Room, the narrator has discovered that he must live with his doppelganger, as he is a necessary by-product of the work of creating literary texts, and that each time the narrator returns to this work, he will be faced with the same set of perils.