The Urban Writing In The New York Trilogy

The thesis tends to analyze Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy, athree-story detective fiction that is contextualized in New York. Thethesis, with Michel de Certeau’s theories on the practices of everyday lifeas its methodology, tends to explore the protagonists’ ways of subvertingthe “proper” place and attempts to locate the ways through which thesecharacters construct their own opening urban spaces. The thesis holds theidea that, by imposing the resistance of “tactics” and “walking narrative”,the characters practice tacitly deconstructions and reconstructions of thespaces they occupy and at the same time, Paul Auster, the author achieveshis urban writing for New York on the basis of the “resistance”. Throughde Certeau’s theories, the writer of the thesis can better perceive bothAuster’s perspectives in rebuilding the city and his profundity anduniqueness in artistic skills.The thesis starts with the introduction to the author and The NewYork Trilogy and gives a brief summary and analysis on the criticisms onthe work. Chapter two illustrates the reason why de Certeau’s theoryabout practices of everyday life is feasible in analyzing the novel. Chapterthree mainly exposes urbanites’ spiritual predicament and the struggle ofquesting for the identity at a loss because of lacking of ontological andepistemological certainty, which causes the formation of “caged beasts”of the city. By “tactics” such as “the wig”,“making-do,” they secretly conduct the silent production to escape the invisible control from the rigidsystem. Chapter four continues narrating the struggle of “caged beasts”by the act of walking in the disciplinary society. With “walkingrhetorics,” the thesis holds that they endeavor to pursue the remotefreedom and uncertain identity (Additionally, Paul Auster also attempts toachieve the reconstruction of the city, probing a way to survive inmechanized city). Last chapter of the thesis sees the conclusion: theinterpretation of urban writing in The New York Trilogy from “tactics”and “walking” can not only present more efficiently the reality of survivalin the modern society and the “fragmentation” of urbanites’ spiritual statebut can point out a practical way out for freedom on the part of theseprotagonists.