A Post-Structural Approach to Language Theory in Relation to Paul Auster’s City of Glass

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A Post-Structural Approach to Language

Theory in Relation to Paul Auster’s City of

Glass

English for Subject Teachers, 61-90 credits Examiner: Anette Svensson

Essay (15 credits) Supervisor: Jenny Malmqvist

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Abstract

Do words mirror reality? This question has been at the core of several linguistic disputes for decades. Several scholars have investigated the relationship between the signifier and the signified, and different literary theories suggest different approaches. This study is a close reading analysis of Paul Auster’s City of Glass, a novel that has been the subject of several scholarly studies relating to the role of language. This study aims to analyse the role of signification in the novel seen from a post-structuralist perspective in order to show how Auster problematizes language. Several explicit remarks on language are made from various characters in the novel, each expressing and conveying different language views.

Nevertheless, a post-structural view on language wins favour as post-structural ideas and concepts are seen in the narrative language and the constructive level of the text. The analysis shows that Auster uses a post-structural view on language to illustrate the instability of signification in language. Auster problematizes the stability of language in order to illustrate the tentativeness of truth and ambiguity of reality. The language view of the narrator is used to illustrate the mimetic view that language is able to accurately record reality. The mimetic view on language is problematized by using the notebook as a symbol for the relationship between the signifier and the signified. The arbitrariness of language is illustrated through the means of the notebook in order to problematize truth. Auster uses the character of the

protagonist Daniel Quinn to illustrate the belief in an essential truth within literature. This view is then problematized by using arbitrariness in the structural level of the text in order to illustrate the relativity of truth. The character of Stillman Sr is used to illustrate the belief of man being able to control language. However, the search for a divine language turns out to be a gnostic and meaningless quest since no cosmic solutions are achieved. The failure of

Stillman´s quest is used to argue for the predominance of language over man. Language determines how people perceive truth. The perception of truth and reality is dependent on language. Since language is arbitrary, there is no truth which consists outside of language.

A Post-Structural Approach to Language Theory in Relation to Paul Auster’s City of

Glass

Number of pages: 23

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1. Introduction and Aim

Auster’s novel The New York Trilogy is a trilogy comprising three novellas. In City of Glass, which is the first novel in the trilogy, the protagonist Daniel Quinn is introduced as a novel mystery writer. He lives in the city of New York and writes his work under the pseudonym William Wilson under which name he also publishes his work. One night Quinn receives a phone call that propels him to take on a new name, Paul Auster, and assume the work of a detective. Auster is asked to guard a man’s life against his father, namely, Peter Stillman Jr. against Peter Stillman Sr. It is revealed that the father, a scholar and language professor, has kept his son imprisoned in a room for many years to teach him the language of God, being an experiment on the nature of language and its developments. An old man is picked seemingly by chance upon his arrival to New York as being Stillman Sr. He is then followed by Quinn, or Auster, to a hotel. Every day Quinn watches him closely and is, at last, propelled to speak to Stillman face to face. After several conversations with Stillman Sr, Quinn becomes absorbed by Stillman Sr and his philosophy on language. By the end of the book, Quinn’s words and identity are faded into the air.

Language is a central theme in City of Glass and has been the topic of several surveys of scholarship. Vatanpour for example discusses the role of identity and language seen in City of Glass (204-217). Rouhvand explores the language of narrative from a post-structuralist perspective (204-212), and Rowen analyses the quest for the prelapsarian language (224-233). These studies focus on the role of language from a post-structuralist point of view, however an in-depth analysis of the signifier and signified relationship is somewhat absent within the field of scholarly texts. Therefore, this study aims to analyse the role of

signification in the novel, seen from a post-structuralist perspective. Several explicit remarks on language are made from various characters in the novel, each expressing and conveying different language views. However, a post-structural view on language is being favoured in order to problematize the stability of language. The method of this study has been a close reading analysis of Paul Auster’s City of Glass, analysing various perspectives on language in the novel to show how the relationship between the signifier and signified is problematized. In City of Glass, Paul Auster problematizes the stability of language in order to illustrate the tentativeness of truth and ambiguity of reality.

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2. Background and Theoretical Framework

Post-structuralism is an extension of structuralism and emanates from its propositions. These propositions stem out of the belief that things cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen in the larger structure they are part of. The father of structuralism, Ferdinand de Saussure argues that “language is a system” with linguistic signs as its building blocks. In other words, a sign is the relationship between a word and what it designates, and language is built up around these signs. Each sign is “composed of signifier and signified” which is “a unified whole” (70). Thus, the signifier denotes the signified; the signified being the thing which the signifier is trying to represent. For structuralists, meaning is created because of the differentiation between these signs, often consisting of binary pairs and oppositions (139-141).

Post-structuralism is a continuation and development of structuralism as well as a critique, accusing structuralists of not following through the implications of their views about language (Derrida Structure, Sign and Play 1). Language is not a structure of meaning, or a sign system consisting of signifier and signified (Derrida Of Grammatology 113). Language is, as post-structuralism would argue, a chain of signifiers and a free play of signification (Derrida Structure, Sign and Play 12). The relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary and therefore cannot be settled. Thus, meaning is always deferred. Language deters one’s experience of reality since meaning and essence are always under the influence of free play (113). “Free play” is that in which there are no absolutes of fixed points of reference. Instead of deviation from a known centre, we all have a free play of

signification. Traditionally, the notion of centre is that which makes the structure a unified whole. In poststructuralism however, the ambivalent nature of the signifier and signified relation makes it possible to think about structure as lacking an ultimate centre (Barry 65). In Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida opposes the proposition that one is to assume an ultimate meaning when involving oneself with a text (3-18). Instead, language deters direct experience of reality and truth since the signification process is floating under the influence of free play. Thus, post-structuralism embraces several theoretical positions which reflect on language. The key assumptions within post-structuralism entail the “instability of signification, the tentativeness of truth, and the ambiguity of reality in the socio-cultural arena” (Rouhvand 204).

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Scholars have analysed different post-structural aspects of language in relation to City of Glass. Hassan Rouhvand analyses the notion of centre and centrality in the novel with the assumption that “if the text is looked through a deconstructionist eyes, then there would be no controlling center to piece the whole structure together” (204). Rouhvand’s discussion of center aims to examine an eventual meaning in City of Glass. Rouhvand concludes in his research that Quinn’s attempt to look for a coherent center in the case ends in the signified’s non-existent or its constant deferment (211). Language turns out to blur reality as it is not a transparent medium to meaning. Therefore, City of Glass confesses its own impotence and inability to establish a center.

Sina Vatanpour discusses the issue of identity and language in City of Glass. The protagonist, Daniel Quinn, assumes multiple identities throughout the novel. Still, Quinn’s true

personality is never actually revealed but remains unclear (208). Furthermore, Vatanpour argues that the quest of restoring the language spoken before the fall is a strategy aimed at discovering the true meaning of life. However, the search for the prelapsarian language itself proves to be a gnostic quest and therefore suggests the dominance of language over man (209).

The quest for the prelapsarian language in City of Glass is also discussed by Norma Rowen (128-132). Stillman aims to restore the signifier and signified relation by repossessing the prelapsarian language. Quinn becomes involved in Stillman’s search, however, they never achieve success in their quest.

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3. Analysis/Discussion

3.1. The Narrator’s View on Language

One of the first views on language encountered in the novel is when Quinn, the protagonist, picks up a copy of Marco Polo’s Travels and comes across the quotation: "We will set down things seen as seen, things heard as heard, so that our book may be an accurate record, free from any sort of fabrication. And all who read this book or hear it may do so with full

confidence, because it contains nothing but the truth" (qtd. in Auster 12). The quote of Marco Polo illustrates a view on language that we are able to give an accurate record of reality, free from fabrication, through the lens of our senses and understanding, and that we can convey this truth through the means of language without it being altered or interpreted differently. Towards the end of the novel, the narrator becomes a distinct character in the story. The narrator expresses their view on language on two occasions. The first instance the narrator interacts with the story we find when Quinn has withdrawn into the alley to observe

Stillman’s building. The narrator acknowledges that information is scarce and that they have preferred "to pass over in silence what could not be definitely confirmed" (173). The narrator continues, remarking that "[s]ince this story is based entirely on facts, the narrator feels it his duty not to overstep the bounds of the verifiable, to resist at all costs the perils of invention" (173). The narrator uses the notebook as the basis for the narrative. Thus, the narrator seems to suggest that they share Marco Polo’s view on language, that it is possible to give an accurate account of the story through the lens of the notebook. The notebook is viewed as fact to the story. To not give a false account of what happened, the narrator does not want to add anything to the story that the notebook cannot verify. Like Marco Polo, the narrator seems to suggest that they can give an accurate account of the story through the lens of Quinn’s experiences written in the notebook. However, what problematizes the probability of the narrator basing the story solely on Quinn’s notes is the fact that Quinn makes his first entry in the notebook about a quarter into the story. The text explains with detail how Quinn buys the notebook after his meeting with Virginia and Peter Stillman Jr and sits down to write his first entry (62-66). The first entry he writes is a description of the old picture of Stillman senior and whether he would be able to recognize him in the present. The entry is in no way related to his personal life or what had happened up until that point. Throughout the novel, the entries written by Quinn are either philosophical or related to the Stillman case. His

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encounter with Paul Auster the writer is, for instance, never mentioned by Quinn. Thus, the entries are not sufficient as an only source to the story, but the narrator must have added information from other sources and made their own interpretation of what happened. The second instance the narrator participates in the events of the story is towards the end of the novel. The narrator arrives from a trip to Africa and visits their friend Paul Auster who explains to them about Quinn. They head to Stillman’s building where they find the red notebook, and the narrator writes:

As for Quinn, it is impossible for me to say where he is now. I have followed the red notebook as closely as I could, and any inaccuracies in the story should be blamed on me. There were moments when the text was difficult to decipher, but I have done my best with it and have refrained from any interpretation. (202)

The narrator claims to have relied on the notebook when telling the story, refraining from any interpretation. However, contrary to what the narrator claims, the entries in the notebook are not sufficient as the only source to the story since they do not possess enough information. The narrator must have added information from other sources and made their own

interpretation of what happened.

The notebook is a symbol of the relationship between the signifier and the signified. Reality represents the signified whereas the notebook represents the signifier. The narrator claims that the notebook gives an accurate account of the events. The signifier makes a similar claim to signify the signified. However, the notebook is ambiguous since it is not possible to draw a conclusion of the events based solely on it. The narrator cannot know what happened in the story by only reading the notebook but must have added information from another source. Similarly, structuralists challenge the relationship between the signifier and the signified because of the ambiguity of the signifier (Saussure 67). There is no inherent connection between a word and what it designates but can mean many different things depending on the meaning mankind gives to it. Likewise, the notebook cannot be used as a reliable source for the story since it is open to multiple interpretations.

Language traditionally, as mimetic theory suggests, claims that language as a medium is capable of imitating the world (Palaver 8-14). However, structuralists imply that language as a sign system is based on arbitrariness (Saussure 139-141). Since language is ambiguous, it is

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not possible to rely on it to give an accurate account of reality. Language is not a reflection of the world but a system that stands separate from it. One of Saussure’s pronouncements is that language does not record the world but constitutes it (143). Language is not a reflection of the world but rather shapes how people view the world (140). Consequently, there is no truth that consists outside of language (143) In City of Glass, truth is problematized. The narrator tries to write a true record of the events that happened. However, they rely on a limited source. The notebook is limited in the sense that it is linguistically inadequate. Similar to the notebook, the system of language is flawed and limited. Language cannot be a reflection of the world since language as a sign system is arbitrary.

3.2. Daniel Quinn’s View on Language

3.2.1. Quinn’s Change in Perspective on Language

Another view on language encountered in the novel is illustrated by the protagonist Daniel Quinn. As the story progresses, Quinn reflects and changes his perspective on language. As a writer of detective novels, Quinn initially believes in a centre that will draw a story to its conclusion, and which gives reason to every word and detail. Quinn claims that the work of the writer is the work of the detective in the novel. They are interchangeable:

In the good mystery there is nothing wasted, no sentence, no word that is not significant. And even if it is not significant, it has the potential to be so – which amounts to the same thing. The world of the book comes to life, seething with possibilities, which secrets and contradictions. Since everything seen or said, even the slightest, most trivial thing, can bear a connection to the outcome of the story, nothing must be overlooked. Everything becomes essence; the center of the book shifts with each event that propels it forward. The center, then, is everywhere, and no circumference can be drawn until the book has come to its end. The detective is one who looks, who listens, who moves through this morass of objects and events in search of the thought, the idea that will pull all these things together and make sense of them. In effect, the writer and the detective are interchangeable. (Auster 15)

Quinn’s search for the centre illustrates the view that literature has an inherent truth that pulls and gives meaning and sense to every word. The reader can uncover this “truth”. Like Quinn, Liberal humanism shares the belief of a centre, a meaning that is within the literary text itself.

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Because good literature is of timeless significance, it transcends the peculiarities of the age it is written in and speaks to what is constant in human nature, which is unchanging and can therefore be understood (James 6-9). However, as the story of the novel progresses, Quinn starts to question whether human nature can be understood:

Quinn was deeply disillusioned. He had always imagined that the key to good detective work was a close observation of details. The more accurate the scrutiny, the more successful the results. The implication was that human behavior could be understood, that beneath the infinite façade of gestures, tics, and silences, there was finally a coherence, an order, a source of motivation. But after struggling to take in all these surface effects, Quinn felt no closer to Stillman than when he first started following him. (Auster 105)

Quinn had hoped to uncover an order to Stillman´s actions through close observation of details. He had believed that with enough scrutiny, an order could be found. However, he feels as if he has been disillusioned. Quinn turns to a clean page in his notebook and starts to sketch a map of the area Stillman has wandered in. Soon he sees a pattern that forms the words “The tower of Babel” (Auster 111). Quinn ponders over the possible hidden message of the words but then realises that Stillman never actually left a message anywhere since they had not been written down:

True, he had created the letters by the movement of his steps, but they had not been written down. It was like drawing a picture in the air with your finger. The image vanishes as you are making it. There is no result, no trace to mark what you have done. (111)

The novel never reveals if there was a hidden message or meaning behind the phrase. Whether the sign is arbitrary or part of a bigger system of reason, we do not know. Human behaviour may be logical or utterly illogical. Either Stillman’s actions were calculated, or "[t]he letters were not letters at all. He had seen them only because he had wanted to see them. And even if the diagrams did form letters, it was only a fluke" (113). Perhaps people see a logical pattern to human behaviour only because they want to. Liberal humanism argues that human nature is constant and unchanging, and that literature therefore is of timeless significance (James 6-9). Quinn tries to find a logical pattern to Stillman’s behaviour, he concludes however that Stillman’s actions do not follow a logical pattern. Quinn then

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questions whether human behaviour follows a logical pattern at all, or whether people see a pattern only because they want to. The claim that literature speaks to what is constant in human nature is therefore unfounded. The logical consequence follows that it is not possible to draw the conclusion that literary texts contain meaning within themselves.

One of the tenets of structural theory is the idea that meanings are attributed to things by the human mind instead of contained within them. Meaning or significance is not a kind of essence or core within things, but meaning is always attributed to them from the outside (Barry 38). Saussure emphasises that meanings given to words are purely arbitrary, and that these meanings are held by convention. There is no inherent meaning behind a word and what it designates (139-141). Roland Barthes takes the idea of Saussure a step further in his essay “The death of the Author” and makes a declaration of radical textual independence (521). Meaning is attributed to a literary text by the reader, rather than by the author, so the claim to decipher a text becomes futile (521). Since each reader may perceive a text differently, there is an endless free play of meanings and an escape from textual authority (521).

I would argue that Quinn shifts in his view on language and literature. From believing in an essence that pulls and gives meaning and sense to every word and detail in a story, he starts to reflect on arbitrariness and its impact on how language and literature are viewed. A change in Quinn’s attitude towards language is seen after his first encounter with Peter Stillman junior and Virginia Stillman (Auster 59). He looks out the window of a cab and wonders if the trees he is seeing are the same trees that Peter Stillman saw when he walked out into the light for the first time after his many years of confinement. “He wondered if Peter saw the same things he did, or whether the world was a different place for him. And if a tree was not a tree, he wondered what it really was” (59). Here we see Quinn starting to reflect on language. Whether people see the world out of convention, and whether those who are not conformed view the world differently; if the meanings people give to words are purely arbitrary, and whether these meanings are maintained by convention only.

Another instance when Quinn reflects on language is as he walks through the station after reading Stillman’s book about language and its downfall. As he walks through the station, he looks up at the vaulted ceiling of the great hall and studies the fresco of constellations. Light bulbs were representing the stars and line drawings of the celestial figures:

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Quinn had never been able to grasp the connection between the constellations and their names. As a boy he had spent many hours under the night sky trying to tally the clusters of pinprick lights with the shape of bears, bulls, arches, and water carriers. But nothing had ever come of it, and he had felt stupid, as though there were a blind spot in the center of his brain. (83)

The connection between the star constellation and its name is arbitrary. Still, people look at the clusters of stars and see a pattern based on the name they have given to it. Saussure argues that language constitutes the world, it does not record or label it (143). How people use language shapes how they view the world. For instance, the name of the star

constellations shapes how people look at them. Still, the clusters of stars are random, with no apparent connection to the name.

Shifting his attention to a photograph displayed on the station wall, Quinn is reminded of his visit to Nantucket with his wife long ago (83). His wife was then pregnant with their son. These evoked memories are too painful for Quinn to ponder on, so he tells himself to look at the photograph through Auster’s eyes. He is relieved to find that his mind wanders in a different direction. Thus, depending on who is looking, different associations are made when beholding the photograph. Still, both interpretations are valid. Since meaning is attributed to the photograph by the observer, the claim to decipher the picture becomes futile. The same applies to literature and language. Since each reader may perceive a text differently, there is an endless free play of meaning and an escape from textual authority (Barthes “The Death of the Author” 521).

The issue of centre in City of Glass is discussed by Rouhvand. He concludes that the detective’s attempt to look for a coherent centre in the Stillman case ends in the signified’s non-existence or in its continuous deferment. Quinn’s desire to find a structured centre in his writing practise and a meaning to the Stillman case ends with the signified’s constant

postponement. He tries to find a centre by hoping to create a link between the signifier and the signified. The sketching of Stillman’s movements through the streets cannot be verbalized without trouble, and when turned into language, they do not make sense as intended. The facts collected by Quinn’s surveillance appear as mere fragments and nothing comes out of them (Auster 204-212). The narrator comments: “Stillman had nothing to do with it. It was all an accident, a hoax he [Quinn] had perpetrated on himself” (113). As the story progresses, each endless theory and each move Quinn makes postpones the meaning further and adds to the number of signifiers and their fragmentation. As Barthes states, the novel remains

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centered without closure” and “practises infinite deferment of the signified […] the

generation of perpetual signifier” (“From Work to Text” 168). This postponement of meaning argues Rouhvand “significantly provided proof for the poststructuralist position in that it is always a step ahead” (211). Quinn’s theories did not lead to a progression in the case but rather added to the “labyrinth web of fragments” which left him frustrated with the absence of truth and regretful that he had ever entered the case (Auster 102). Instead of language behaving as a transparent medium to the meaning, it proved instead to blur the facts and the reality. Therefore, the literary text confesses to its own impotence, its inability to establish a centre. On the very first page of the novel we read:

Much later, when he was able to think about the things that happened to him, he would conclude that nothing was real except chance. But that was much later. In the beginning there was simply the event and its consequences. Whether it might have turned out differently, or whether it was all predetermined with the first word that came from the stranger´s mouth, is not the question. The question is the story itself, and whether or not it means something is not for the story to tell. (7)

Auster renounces any responsibility or intention of a centre or meaning in City of Glass. The question is whether meaning creation is possible at all.

3.2.2. Arbitrariness on a Structural Level

Arbitrariness is also seen on a more structural level in the text. Throughout the novel, Quinn takes on different personas and identities by a shift of naming:

As he wandered through the station, he reminded himself of who he was supposed to be. The effect of being Paul Auster, he had begun to learn, was not altogether unpleasant. Although he still had the same body, the same mind, the same thoughts, he felt as though he had somehow been taken out of himself, as if he no longer had to walk around with the burden of his own consciousness. By a simple trick of the intelligence, a deft little twist of naming, he felt incomparably lighter and freer. At the same time, he knew it was all an illusion. (82)

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Quinn taking on different identities is illustrated in the three conversations he has with Peter Stillman Sr. In each encounter with Stillman, Quinn presents himself by a different name and persona. Together they then discuss the name.

3.2.2.1. The First Conversation with Stillman

During their first encounter, Quinn presents himself by the name Quinn. They discuss the resonance of the name and how it rhymes with many other words. They use symbolism to describe language: “[m]any think of words as stones, as great unmovable objects with no life, as monads that never change” (118). Quinn replies: “[s]tones can change. They can be worn away by wind or water. They can erode. They can be crushed. You can turn them into shards, or gravel, or dust” (118). Language does not stand still but is constantly changing and

developing. Sapir describes language as “a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires utilizing a system of voluntarily produced

symbols. These symbols are, in the first instance, auditory and they are produced by so-called ‘organs of speech’” (7). Language changes are produced primarily by the organs of speech in so-called variation. These variations begin with minor changes in how people articulate certain words. For reasons which appear arbitrary linguistically, a given phonetic variable becomes socially significant (Weinreich et al. 103). Stillman and Quinn’s discussion about name focuses on phonetic variability and how language is constantly changing and

developing. The relationship between the arbitrary vocal symbols and what they designate is purely arbitrary. Thus, there is no necessary connection between the form of a word and its meaning.

3.2.2.2. The Second Conversation with Stillman

During the second encounter between Quinn and Stillman senior, Quinn presents himself as Henry Dark (Auster 24). Stillman opposes the possibility of him being Henry Dark since Henry Dark is an invention: “Yes. He’s a character in a book I once wrote. A figment” (125). Henry Dark is one of the quintessential characters Stillman bases his studies of language on. Quinn asks Stillman why he invented Henry Dark, and Stillman answers: “I needed him, you see. I had certain ideas at the time that were too dangerous and controversial. So I pretended

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they had come from someone else. It was a way of protecting myself” (125). Stillman

continues: “It is quite possible that your name is Henry Dark. But you’re not the Henry Dark” (125). Quinn and Stillman problematize the signifier and signified relation. It is possible for the same signifier to have different signifieds. Two people can inherit the same name, yet the name refers to two different entities. Language is limited in the sense that it lacks the scope in which the signified can be specified.

For instance, duplication of names is a recurring phenomenon in the novel. At the beginning of the story, Quinn receives a phone call asking for the private detective Paul Auster (19). Accepting the case, Quinn takes on the persona of one of his fictional characters, Max Work, and goes under the name Paul Auster. Later in the story, Quinn seeks up the Paul Auster he believes was intended to receive the call and meets him. It is revealed that Paul Auster is neither a detective but a writer just as Quinn. Not only do they share the same profession, but they share other similar traits as well. They both cook similar foods and they both had a wife and a son (149). Additionally, the author of the novel is also named Paul Auster and is a writer. The relationship between the signifier and the signified is once again problematized. Even though they share the same signifier – the name “Paul Auster”, as well as similar traits with each other – yet they are different signifieds as they are different people. Duplication of names is recurring throughout the novel. There are two Peter Stillmans – Stillman Sr and Stillman Jr. There are two Daniels - Daniel Quinn and Daniel the son of Paul Auster (157). There are also two William Wilsons (196). There is Quinn writing detective novels under the pseudonym William Wilson; there is also the baseball player William Wilson who plays under the name Mookie Wilson. Towards the end of the novel, Quinn reflects on this

possibility: “Surely there was something interesting in that. Quinn pursued the idea for a few moments but then abandoned it. The two William Wilsons cancelled each other out, and that was all” (196). The signifier is arbitrary and thus the relationship between the signifier and the signified is also arbitrary. The name of a person is arbitrary and thus the relationship between the name and the person is arbitrary. Two different people may have the same name, however, the names cancel each other out. For example, the name William Wilson may designate one person, however since another person’s name is also William Wilson the name loses its designation. Thus, language is limited in the sense that it lacks the scope in which it can specify the signified. The connection between a name and what it designates is arbitrary.

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3.2.2.3. The Third Conversation with Stillman

In the last and final conversation between Quinn and Stillman, Quinn presents himself and takes on the persona of Peter Stillman junior: “This was the third time Quinn had presented himself, and each time it was as though Quinn had been someone else” (131). Once again Stillman does not recognise Quinn but asks who he is. Hearing Quinn’s reply Stillman says “Oh. You mean my son. Yes, that´s possible. You look just like him. Of course, Peter is blond and you are dark. Not Henry Dark, but dark of hair. But people change, don’t they? One minute we’re one thing, and then another another” (131). It is possible for the signified to change and have multiple signifiers. Thus, it is possible for a person to change and adapt new and different identities. This idea is represented through the various personas and identities undertaken by Quinn:

A part of him had died, he told his friends, and he did not want it coming back to haunt him. It was then that he had taken on the name of William Wilson. Quinn was no longer that part of him that could write books, and although in many ways Quinn continued to exist, he no longer existed for anyone but himself. He had continued to write because it was the only thing he felt he could do. Mystery novels seemed a reasonable solution. He had little trouble inventing the intricate stories they required, and wrote well, often in spite of himself, as if without having to make an effort. Because he did not consider himself to be the author of what he wrote, he did not feel responsible for it and therefore was not compelled to defend it in his heart. (9)

Ever since Quinn’s wife and son had died he had lived a solitary life writing under the pseudonym William Wilson. Quinn explains it as if William Wilson had been born within Quinn himself and now led an independent life. Quinn treated him with deference and admiration, but he never went so far as to believe they were the same person (10). Here we see Quinn taking on another persona to the degree that he believes they are two different people. The signified changes and becomes something different. Thus, the signified has multiple signifiers. Quinn is both William Wilson and Daniel Quinn.

Quinn takes on the persona of Paul Auster the detective. As Quinn walks through the station his eyes fall on a Kodak displayed photograph showing a street in a New England fishing village. It reminds Quinn of walking in a similar village with his wife long ago when she was pregnant with their son. These evoked memories are too painful for Quinn so he tells himself

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to look at the picture through Auster’s eyes and is relieved to find his thoughts wandering to a different subject (83). Here we see Quinn taking on the persona of Paul Auster when looking at the picture. It is no longer Quinn who is looking at the picture but the signified has

changed and looks at the picture differently. Thus, the signified has multiple signifiers. Quinn is both Paul Auster and Daniel Quinn.

3.3. Stillman Senior’s View on Language

Another view on language encountered in the novel is illustrated by the character Stillman senior. Stillman’s view on language represents an interpretation of John Milton and his account of Paradise Lost, written in the 1600s. Paradise Lost is a poem consisting of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. The poem concerns the biblical story of the Fall of man, the temptation of Adam and Eve, and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Stillman claims that it was only after the fall that human life as we know came into being, since in the Garden before the fall there was no good or evil. Stillman argues that it was the source of the apple whose taste brought forth knowledge into the world - the knowledge of good and evil (Auster 69-70). This discrepancy could also be found in language:

Stillman also dwelled on the paradox of the word ‘cleave,’ which means both ‘to join together’ and ‘to break apart,’ thus embodying two equal and opposite significations, which in turn embodies a view of language that Stillman found to be present in all of Milton’s work. (70)

In Paradise lost, each keyword has two possible meanings – one before the fall and one after the fall. To illustrate this, Stillman isolates several words such as – delicious, serpentine, and sinister – and shows their prelapsarian use, which was free from moral connotations, whereas their use after the fall was informed by a knowledge of evil and therefore shaded and

ambiguous (70). In the garden of Eden Adam’s task had been to invent language, to give each creature and thing its name. In a state of innocence, before the fall, Adam’s tongue had gone “to the quick of the world” (70). His words had revealed their true essences. “A thing and its name were interchangeable. After the fall, this was no longer true. Names became detached from things; words devolved into a collection of arbitrary signs; language had been severed

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from God” (70). Stillman argues that the story of the Garden of Eden not only records the fall of man, but also the fall of language.

Stillman takes Milton’s ideas a step further. If the fall of man entailed the fall of language, it was logical to assume that it would be possible to undo the fall, reverse its effects by undoing the fall of language by striving to create the language which was spoken in Eden. Stillman argues that if a man could learn to speak the original language of innocence, he would recover a state of innocence within himself (76-77). Stillman gives the example of Christ speaking the prelapsarian language, whereas Satan - as illustrated in Milton’s Paradise Regained – always speaks with ‘double-sense deluding’. Therefore, Stillman contends, it could “indeed be possible for a man to speak the original language of innocence and to recover, whole and unbroken, the truth within himself” (Auster 76-77). Stillman argues that signifiers have drifted away from what they signify. Stillman aims to clear up these

difficulties in repossessing the prelapsarian tongue. By reconciling the signifier to the signified, Stillman hopes to achieve a reliable reading of the world and formulate a correct text of reality (Rowen 228).

This idea of language is further presented in the conversations between Stillman and Quinn (Auster 120-123). In their first conversation, Stillman explains that he is in the pursuit of creating a new language. He argues that language no longer corresponds to the world. When things were whole, language was able to express the object. However, these objects have broken apart, yet language has remained the same. Hence, every time people try to speak of what they see, they speak falsely, distorting the very thing they are trying to represent. Because a thing no longer can perform its function, the “umbrella has ceased to be an umbrella” (121). Yet, the word has remained the same. Therefore, it can no longer express the thing. “And if we cannot even name a common, everyday object that we hold in our hands, how can we expect to speak of the things that truly concern us?” (122). Stillman aimed to create a new language capturing the inherent essence and meaning of each word.

Otherwise, he argues, how can people speak of matters that are more abstract and important? This view on language can be contrasted to Saussure’s language view. Stillman tries to recreate a language revealing the object’s inherent essence, whereas Saussure claims that meaning is not contained within the object but attributed to it by the human mind (Saussure 139-141). According to Saussure, language constitutes the world, it does not record or label it. There is no neutral or objective way of designating a thing, but the word chosen will

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construct that object or person in a certain way. Since all terms are purely linguistic – no truth exists outside of language (143). Thus, Stillman does not share a post-structuralist view on language.

According to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, language reproduces reality as does a painting: the elements of the image reflect the relations among the elements of the reality described (Sarmento 84). In Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, Wittgenstein argues for a representational theory of language. Reality is a collection of facts that we can picture in language, assuming that language contains a logical form (23-24). Thus, statements are meaningful if they can be defined or pictured in the real world (Hutto 76). In City of Glass, Auster demonstrates this logico-psychic correspondence between the world and language by the legend of the Tower of Babel in which he compares language to an ancient city. Stillman senior claims that the fall of man in the garden of Eden resulted in the fall of language. By recreating the language that was spoken in Eden one could undo the fall: "If man could learn to speak this original language of innocence, did it not follow that he would thereby recover a state of innocence within himself? We need only to look at the example of Christ" (Auster 76). Stillman claims that before the fall, a thing and its name were interchangeable, however, this is no longer true, but language has become a collection of arbitrary signs (69-70). On a surface level, language can appear vague and ambiguous. However, even though thoughts are being expressed via an imperfect medium of language, perfect picturing is possible since the underlying thought content is unambiguous. Thus, statements are meaningful if they can be defined or pictured in the real world (Hutto 76).

Stillman’s philosophy of language accumulates around the figure Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll´s Through the Looking Glass. Stillman calls him a philosopher of language:

When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less. The question is, said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many different things. The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master – that´s all. (qtd. in Auster 127)

Stillman claims that the clue to salvation is to become master over language (128). On the contrary, Heidegger (qtd. in Vatanpour 209) claims that language precedes and dominates man:

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Man acts as if he were the shaper and master of language, while it is language which remains mistress of man. When this relation of dominance is inverted, man succumbs to strange contrivances. Language then becomes a means of expression. […] But this alone can never extricate us from the reversal, from the confusion of the true relation of dominance as between language and man. For in fact it is language that speaks. […] Language is the highest and everywhere the foremost of those assents which we human beings can never articulate solely out of our own means.

In this perspective, Stillman’s search for the divine language becomes a gnostic and meaningless quest. This in turn suggests the transcendence and predominance of language over man. Roland Barthes suggests that the power of the author is subordinated to that of language (“The Death of the Author” 120-123). The author composes a text that generates its own meaning (Steiner 49). Thus, meaning is generated by the reader, and consequently, by language itself. The claim to decipher a text becomes futile since the author of the text is absent. This idea lines with Saussure’s claim that language constitutes the world (143). Language determines how people view the world around them. Since all available terms are linguistic – there is no truth that exists outside of language. Language constitutes how people look upon the world (Bouissac 90).

Toward the end of the novel Quinn becomes drawn into Stillman’s obsessive world and endeavours on this quest for the prelapsarian language. However, did he find the prelapsarian tongue or did it end in absurdity? The narrator seems to suggest a rather gloomy view of Quinn and his life and refers to him as “a man […] obviously in trouble” (Auster 201). Perhaps to a certain extent Quinn achieved his quest. However, he achieved nothing on the scale envisioned by Stillman. He was not able to come up with a correct text of reality and did not achieve any cosmic solutions. The world remains in much the same plight as in the beginning; fallen and fragmented (Rowen 211). Stillman’s view on language is thereby being refuted since he never achieved success in his quest.

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4. Conclusion

The analysis of the study shows that Paul Auster in City of Glass addresses different views on language. The relationship between the signifier and signified remains at the core of this discussion. A post-structural view on language is used to demonstrate the instability of signification. Auster problematizes the stability of language in order to illustrate the tentativeness of truth and the ambiguity of reality.

The language view of the narrator is used to illustrate the mimetic view that language is able to accurately record reality. Auster problematizes the stability of language by using the notebook as a symbol for the relationship between the signifier and the signified. The notebook is ambiguous and cannot be used as a reliable source for the story. Similarly, the signifier is arbitrary and therefore cannot denote the signified. Thus, Auster problematizes truth by illustrating the arbitrariness of language through the means of the notebook. The system of language is built on arbitrariness. Therefore, it is not possible to rely on a language system to give an accurate reflection of the world. On the contrary, language rather shapes how people view the world. How people look upon the world is shaped by the language they use. The consequence of this belief is that there is no truth which consists outside of

language. Truth is relative to the language being used.

Auster uses the character of the protagonist Daniel Quinn to illustrate the belief in an

essential truth within literature. Namely, that truth lies within the text itself and draws a story to its conclusion. Auster problematizes this language view by having the protagonist starting to question the predictability of human nature. Quinn tries to find an order to Stillman’s actions but ends up feeling disillusioned since he is unsuccessful in his quest. People see a logical pattern to human nature only because they want to. Similarly, people see a logical structure and centre in a text only because they want to. The claim to be able to decipher an ultimate centre or truth within a text is unfounded since meaning and essence are always attributed by the outside world. Auster illustrates this idea within the structural level of the novel. City of Glass lacks a structured centre and an ultimate conclusion. Furthermore, duplication of names is a recurring theme. Quinn changes his identity and persona by

adopting different names. In each encounter between Quinn and Stillman Sr the arbitrariness of language is discussed. There are also instances in the novel where Quinn reflects on arbitrariness. Auster uses arbitrariness in the structural level of the text to problematize

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language. Auster problematizes language in order to illustrate the relativity of truth. Language is not a transparent medium to meaning but blurs reality.

Auster uses the character of Stillman Sr to illustrate a belief that man can control language. Stillman believes that language can be manipulated into answering the needs of mankind. Quinn joins Stillman in his quest for the prelapsarian language. By reconciling the signifier to the signified, Stillman hopes to achieve a reliable reading of the world and formulate a

correct text of reality. However, Stillman’s search for the divine language turns out to be a gnostic and meaningless quest since they never achieve any cosmic solutions. Auster uses the failure of their quest to argue for the predominance of language over man. Man is subordinate to language. Thus, language determines how the world is viewed. This implies that language determines how people perceive truth. People’s worldview is a direct consequence of the language they use. In conclusion, the perception of truth and reality is dependent on

language. Since language is arbitrary, there is no truth which consists outside of language.

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Works Cited

Primary Sources

Auster, Paul. City of Glass. England, London: Peguin Books, 1987.

Secondary Sources

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2009.

Barthes, Roland. ”From Work to Text.” Rice, Philip and Patricia Waugh. Modern Literary Theory, A Reader. New York: Chapman and Hall Inc, 1971. 166-71.

---. ”The Death of the Author.” Rivkins, Jule and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1915. 518-521

Bouissac, Paul. Saussure: A guide for the perplexed. London, England: Bloomsbury, 2010. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1976. ---. ”Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” Newton, K.M. Twentieth-Century Literary Theory. New York: St. Martin´s Press, 1997. 303. Hutto, Daniel D. ”Ludwig Wittgenstein´s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.” Topoi, 2014. James, Gribble. Literary Education: A Revaluation. Cambridge General Academics, 1983. Palaver, Wolfgang. René Girard's Mimetic Theory, Michigan State University Press, 2013. Rouhvand, Hassan. ”(De)constructing literary space: a poststructuralist account of center in

Paul Auster´s City of Glass.” Journal of International Scientific Publications, 2015. Rowen, Norma. ”The Detective in Search of the Lost Tongue of Adam: Paul Auster´s City of

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Sapir, Edward. Language: An introduction to the study of speech. Brace: New York: Harcourt, 1921.

Sarmento, Clara. ”Paul Auster´s "The New York Trilogy": The Linguistic Construction of an Imaninary Universe.” Penn State University Press 2002.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. ”Course in General Linguistics.” Rivkins, Julie och Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1915. 59-71.

Steiner, George. After Babel: Aspects of language and translation. Oxfrod University Press, 1998.

Vatanpour, Sina. ”Metaphysics of Language and the Experience of Writing in Paul Auster´s City of Glass.” Birat, Kathie och Brigitte Zaugg. Literature and Spirituality in the English-Speaking World. Beaverton: Ringgold, Inc, 2014.

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Weinreich, Uriel, William Labov och Marvin I Herzog. ”Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Langauge Change.” Lehmann, Winfred P och Yakov Malkiel. Directions for Historical Linguistics. Austin: Univeristy of Texas Press, 1968. 95-195.

A Post-Structural Approach to Language Theory in Relation to Paul Auster’s City of Glass