City Of Glass Tim Quinn Character Analysis

Throughout City of Glass, the identities of characters, and even the author, are unclear. The protagonist, Daniel Quinn, embarks on solving a mystery for his unknown employer, but as the plot unfolds, he becomes increasingly unsure of his own identity. Thus, while Auster initially presents his novel as a work of mystery focused on the secrets of the Stillman family, his novel ultimately tackles the uncertainty of identity. Tim O’Brien similarly writes In the Lake of the Woods as a seemingly characteristic mystery novel that fundamentally addresses the difficulty of accepting oneself, rather than the truth behind Kathy Wade’s disappearance.
Daniel Quinn’s identity in City of Glass is complex in part because he dissociates from his past by …show more content…
In contrast to Tim O’Brien’s intent to add validity to his fictional account of the Vietnam War and its impacts by incorporating historical figures as characters, Auster inserts himself in order to analyze his direction in life. Siri and Daniel, the wife and son, respectively, of the real Paul Auster are introduced as the wife and son of the fictional Paul Auster, as well. Quinn envies the happy family, feeling “as though Auster were taunting him with the things he had lost” (157). As both Quinn and Paul Auster the character serve partly as projections of the real Paul Auster, this section of the novel allows the author to view the different possibilities of his life, the differing directions in which his life could have gone. Unlike Quinn, who can only follow one of the two Stillmans from the train station and can therefore only realize the tangible results of his arbitrary decision to go in one direction rather than the other, Auster is able to view the two divergent paths he could have taken. Quinn is confident that “uncertainty [will] haunt him to the end,” which is a universal struggle that Auster wishes to resolve through his work (90). While Quinn can only wish that he has “an amoeba’s body” with which he could “cut himself in half and run off in two directions at once,” Auster manages to figuratively cut himself in half through his narrative and view his …show more content…
But as he continues to neglect his individual distinctions in favor of others’ attributes, his own thoughts “[grind] to a halt” and he struggles to remember “the life he had lived before the story began” (150, 195). John Wade makes a similar mistake in attempting to reinvent his life and discard his previous identity. The narrator reveals the consequences of his incessant dedication to ridding himself of his past with the acknowledgement that Wade “tried to pull off a trick that couldn't be done, which was to remake himself, to vanish what was past and replace it with things good and new. He should've known better. Should've lifted it out of the act. Never given the fucking show in the first place” (234). By attempting to rewrite his past, Wade traps himself in a position in which his only chance of escaping misery and condemnation is to disappear. Quinn comparably disappears after ceaselessly denying his existence, such as when he gives his real name to Stillman during their first conversation and “even the truth, would be an invention, a mask to hide behind and keep himself safe” (117). Unlike Wade, who deliberately buries his past and identity, Quinn’s simply does not comprehend his identity as truly belonging to