Quinn’s Character in Paul Auster’s City of Glass

English 1 Simon Drury Group P 9/27/2012 Tuesday 3:10 Kathleen Samson Paul Auster has said that The New York Trilogy is midway worried about â€Å"the question of who will be who and whether we are who we think we are. † Use this comment as a state of takeoff for a conversation of the character Quinn â€his introduction in the novel and his experience †in City of Glass.In the City of Glass, Auster makes a feeling of vulnerability around the personalities of the various characters in the book. One doesn't generally get a handle on who will be who in the novel in light of the mind boggling and numerous layers of the story Austen makes. The City of Glass poses inquiries about personality and in this exposition I will take a gander at the hero (Quinn) and his pursuit to get himself and to find his actual personality which at last prompts his personality being changed with each new character job he takes on to overlook his past self.Daniel Quinn is a confused character and ou r insight into him is constrained on the grounds that the storyteller doesn't uncover much about him. Where he originated from and what his identity was appear of little significance in the novel we are just told his age, that he was once hitched yet his child and girl are dead (a past which he is by all accounts fleeing from). He is author of criminologist stories under the pen name William Wilson (a name Quinn takes on to overlook his past). William Wilson’s character mirrors Auster ‘s , the creator, own life. Quinn makes his own character Max Work, a private detective narrator.In his accounts the hero Max turns out to be genuine and moves from simply being an invented character, along these lines causing Quinn himself to take on a portion of the attributes of Max, thinking and carrying on likewise to him. In the end Quinn â€Å"stopped thinking on himself as genuine. †(Auster 10) So as of now Auster makes this feeling of uncertainty about Quinn and his actual personality and in the long run Quinn is devoured by the persona of Max Work and â€Å"the more Quinn appeared to disappear, the more diligent works nearness in that world became. (Auster 10). Quinn flees from his ‘real’ life since he discovers some type of fascination in the realm of being an invented investigator. Quinn finds the job of a criminologist engaging on the grounds that it places him in the job of an onlooker, dissecting the world much like a peruser of a novel, and fundamentally he overlooks himself and his existence thusly. Max work is basically a getaway from Quinn’s life as an author (William Wilson) and from his previous existence as the ‘real Quinn’.By turning into the character he made (Max work) Quinn leaves after looking for reality and reality, which in a way is the thing that Quinn is attempting to do as far as finding a personality. Quinn turns out to be so expended in the life of Max Work and being an analyst that when he g ets a call proposed for the private criminologist Paul Auster, he imitates him and starts to concentrate on Peter Stillman. Diminish is a youngster who feels undermined by his dad who had been let out of prison.So now Quinn, under the name of Paul Auster, places himself onto another story, another reality through which of he can additionally dive into the existence a ‘real’ criminologist. Quinn now has just taken upon three personalities, every one of which has filled its need and it slipped been's mind. The topic of who will be who presently starts to become raveled in layers and duplicates so the peruser and the character himself is uncertain of whom the genuine hero of the story is. Quinn gets fixated on Stillman senior and his enthusiasm for the man develops as consistently passes, â€Å"he had lived Stillman’s life, strolled at his place, seen what he had seen. Quinn becomes Stillman during the case in a manner thus another character move is by all accounts inescapable. Dwindle Stillman junior looks like Quinn’s expired child (whose name was additionally Peter), Stillman junior had been bolted up by his dad for a long time so as to test whether ‘God’s language’ would restore (that is the language uncorrupted by the world, it’s cause during the hour of Adam and Eve in the nursery of Eden. ) Roberta Rubenstein contends that Stillman junior is a portrayal of Quinn’s adolescence, detached from the world with a feeling of loneliness.When the two men vanish I makes a feeling of uneasiness for Quinn, he yearns to be ‘non-existent’ too and in the end he transforms into a distraught road walker, destitute and at long last insane. Auster utilizes this haggardness of Quinn to accentuation the contention inside the character and how his ‘self forgetfulness’ prompts his inevitable ruin and leaves the subject of what his identity is and what his identity is intended to be unanswered . Dwindle Stillman is a character utilized by Auster the writer as an approach to additionally investigate the various personalities in the book.Stillman junior, in the wake of having being disengaged from the world has no reasonable handle on his own character, much like Quinn. In a discussion with Quinn he says, â€Å"I am Peter Stillman. That isn't my genuine name. My genuine name is Peter Rabbit. † Stillman junior can change his name to suit him much like Quinn has done all through the book, and as found in the statement Stillman loses the importance of his name and loses his feeling of personality. This statement shows how Auster is clearly posing the inquiry, who will be who and are we who we think we are.Stillman summarizes it by saying, â€Å"I can't state who I will be tomorrow. Every day is new, and every day I can be conceived once more. † The red journal is the main thing in the book that keeps Quinn’s genuine name. He composes it in the book during the Stillman case without precedent for more than five years and it is simply the main record or origination that doesn't change. Quinn perceives the significance of knowing who he is the point at which he says, â€Å"most significant of all: recall who I should be. † And he later echoes the expressions of Peter Stillman Junior when he says, â€Å"all I can say is this: my name is Paul Auster.That isn't my genuine name. † This shows Quinn, as Stillman, is confounded about his own personality. Since he is attempting to be four individuals on the double he loses the cause of his name and character, his actual self. Hence the subject of who will be who and whether we are who we think we are isn't generally replied in this book. Auster gives a multi layered and complex comprehension of what personality is and how it is utilized. For Quinn, character is utilized as a method of departure, maybe from the past or from himself (the individual he was and whom he became tired of) .Although Quinn is a similar individual yet under various names or nom de plumes, he takes on various personalities and makes them a piece of his life which in the long run leaves no clear response to who the ‘real’ Quinn is. Works refered to Auster, Paul. City of Glass. London: Penguin, 1990 Rubenstein, Roberta. Multiplying, Intertextuality and the Postmodern Uncanny: Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy. LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, 9 (1998): 245. Scholarly Search Premier. EBSCOhost. 08. 04. 2006.