City of Glass by Paul Auster essays

City of Glass by Paul Auster essays The novel "City of Glass" depicts the story of Daniel Quinn, a man who lost his wife and son and now has become attached to a detective case that brings new people into his life because of one phone call that he had picked up. Throughout the story the question remains in the readers head as to why does Daniel Quinn decide to take on this detective case. Paul Auster writes the story in a way that gets the reader to make many assumptions but one that many can agree upon is that losing any kind of family member is a horrible incident and can change the way one acts and thinks for the remainder of their life. The realization of being lonely plays a huge role throughout the novel within the connections between Daniel Quinn and the characters he now associates himself with. In the novel "City of Glass", Auster portrays Daniel Quinn as a character with lost emotions and a psychological state that is shown by his actions of impersonating other people. A recurring theme throughout "City of Glass" is the changes of Daniel Quinn's identity. Early on while reading this novel it is portrayed that Quinn goes through a depressed state and tries to forget about his family. "Quinn did not think about his son very much anymore and only recently he had removed the photograph of his wife from the wall" (Auster 6). This seems to be a reaction to his depressed state and shows that Quinn wants to move on with his life and in someway start over with a new identification. Auster states that it had been five years since the death of his son and wife had occurred, and in Quinn's mind the best way to move on was to clear them out of his head. "It was the first time in more than five years that he had put his own name in one of his notebooks" (Karasik and Mazzucchelli 36). Five years can be a long time for someone to dwell on something but when it comes to family death there should no time table. "A part of him had died, he told his friends, and he did not wan...