Intertexts in City of Glass as a way to represent ambiguity and fragmentation of meaning in human language - a comparison between the novel and the graphic novel

Abstract

City of Glass by Paul Auster, which appeared in 1985, is a postmodern novel which deals with the senselessness of modern life and the loss of identity and fragmentation due to a loss of meaning. It is the first part of the New York Trilogy and stages like the following parts Ghosts and The Locked Room with detective quests. (Shiloh 35) City of Glass consists of a web of intertextual references which are referring to other works of literature. Such as Quinn’s identity is fragmented by the various identities he took on, the whole novel is fragmented by the intrusion of various intertexts. The arbitrariness of meaning in human language is exemplified through the intertextual level of Paradise Lost by John Milton. This arbitrariness of the linguistic sign and therefore the arbitrariness of meaning in human language suggests that there is also an ambiguity of identity which has always been an important issue in the oeuvre of Paul Auster. A loss of identity is reflected through an intertextual level the text is working with by referencing Don Quixote, a 19th century novel by Miguel de Cervantes. As the intertexts stand for a fragmented identity, we shall look at how the intertextual level is represented in the City of Glass the graphic novel.