Yuuki Rosby The novel City of Glass by Paul Auster is a psychological mystery that makes the reader think

deeply about the true meaning of the book. City of Glass tells a story of a man named Daniel Quinn who has lost his purpose in life. He uses a pen name, Max Work, to write his true feelings. As the story begins, Quinn is living a lonely life when he gets a phone call asking for a detective named Paul Auster. He accepts the case due to his love mystery and investigates a man named Peter Stillman Sr. who is going to kill his son. There are innumerable themes and underlying meanings in this book and one thing I wondered about is, what happened to Daniel Quinn? To answer that I had to understand more about doppelgangers in the book. A doppelgangers is a double of someone. They do not have to look-a-like and it is considered a bad omen to meet one. A persons doppelgangers are often considered a glimpse into their future. As the story progresses, Daniel Quinn becomes more similar to Peter Stillman, essentially becoming his doppelganger, which leads to Quinn committing suicide, just like Stillman Sr. Daniel Quinn and Peter Stillman Sr. have similar backgrounds, because they have lost their families and former lives. Quinn lost his wife and child for unknown reasons and was eventually evicted from his home, while Peter Stillman Sr. lost his son to the authorities after his house burned. Virginia claimed that he reached some point of final disgust with himself that night and decided to burn his papers. But the fire got out of control and much of the apartment burned (27). Both Quinn and Stillman Sr. were also writers; Quinn wrote poems and later published books under his pen name of William Wilson. William Wilson is a character from a short story by Poe revolving around the theme of doppelgangers. In Quinn's mystery books, he wrote about the cases his detective, Max Work, investigated. Quinn is a devoted reader of mystery novels... (7), and that it was a kind of hunger that took hold of him, a craving for a special food, and he would not stop until he had eaten his full (8) . Quinn is obsessed with mystery books and uses William Wilson to feed his obsession by writing countless mystery books. On the other hand Peter Stillman created a story about a man, Henry Dark, who was obsessed with Gods language. I needed him (Dark) you see, I had certain ideas at the time that were to dangerous and controversial, so I pretended to be someone else (76). Peter Stillman used Henry Dark to tell the world his true emotions because he was to afraid to say them himself. Along with having similar backgrounds, they also have similar personalities. We can see this through out the book, from simple things such as the color of their notebooks, or even how their sons names were Peter. They both also blend into the cityscape with ease. When Quinn became a hobo due to his excessive stalking, the author said, he had to avoid other

Doppelgangers

people as systematically as he could. He could not look at them, he could not talk to them, he could not think about them. (118) Quinn avoided all human contact much like Stillman Sr. did. Also, Quinn said he, had always thought of himself as a man who liked to be alone. For the past five years, in fact, he had actively sought it, much like Stillman Sr. he had spent years in isolation. When Quinn first lost Peter Stillman Sr. he said, Stillman was gone. The old man had become part of the city. He was a speck, a punctuation mark, a brick in an endless wall of bricks. Quinn could walk through the streets for everyday for the rest of his life, and he would still not find him (91). Stillman easily blended into the streets, because he is used to isolation. Stillman did not talk to anyone, did not go into any stores, did not smile (60). He went to jail for many years and learned to become comfortable with isolation, much like how Quinn has. Due to their isolation, Peter Stillman Sr. and Daniel Quinn end up with nothing but their obsessions. Daniel Quinn became so obsessed with mystery novels that he subconsciously decided to take on an actual case. As he got deeper into the case, he slowly stared risking everything to solve it, leading him to lose everything he owned. What had been there the last time he was in the apartment had been removed. His desk was gone, his books were gone, the child drawings of his dead son were gone (124). Peter Stillman Sr, just like Quinn, slowly became more and more obsessed with Gods language, to the point that he decided to try to experiment on his own son. He lost sight of all else in the world and only focused on his obsession, and much like Quinn, he lost everything everything little by little, until finally losing his sanity. In conclusion, Peter Stillman Sr. was a doppelganger of Daniel Quinn and was a bad omen that served as a peek into Quinns future. Paul Auster, the author, uses Quinn as a way to show readers how Peter Stillman Sr. turned into his present-day self. As the story progresses, Quinn loses his sanity, much like how Stillman Sr. lost his. Towards the end, Quinn reached the point where he had nothing left but his obsession. When we first meet Peter Stillman Sr, he too had nothing left in his life besides his obsession. Although Quinns whereabouts are known that Stillman Sr. disappeared like Quinn and then committed suicide. Perhaps its another foreshadowing as to what will happen to Quinn.