Baudrillardian Analysis of Paul Auster‟s City of Glass and Hyperrealization of Identity

Abstract

A characteristic feature of Paul Auster‟s fiction has been his prolific introduction and usage of
postmodern concepts. City of Glass (1985) as one of his debut works which comes to be known as a
representative of the postmodern detective fiction, is one of the most significant novels in which multiple
clusters of identities are used for characterization. This paper offers a Baudrillardian analysis of the
protagonist- Daniel Quinn- and his surrounding characters and tries to analyze their constant
metamorphosis of identities as a result of living in a simulation of reality. Baudrillard identifies the means
by which, as part of a process of „Simulation‟, Hyperreal identities and values are governing the mentality
of today‟s people. Thus in the context of a critique of a hyperreal society as a universal simulation,
studying City of Glass associates Quinn's microcosm of hyperrealistic identities with Baudrillard's forth's
order of Simulacra to foreground Auster's "command models" of Simulacra as a postmodern paradigm.