Poetics of Solitude: Lacanian Reading of Paul Auster’s 4 3 2 1 and The Invention of Solitude[Latin Thesis]

Behnaz Abasi

The present research seeks to explore two of Paul Auster’s novels in the light of Jacques Lacan’s notions regarding solitude, which he uses to make reference to the solitude of the subject within its empty constitution. This thesis has accordingly chosen two of Auster’s novels namely 4 3 2 1 (his latest novel consisted of four novelettes) and, The Invention of Solitude (his first prose work), and has studied them through a qualitative method based on a selection of Lacan’s notions considering his three orders: Imaginary, Symbolic and Real, along with the mirror stage that brings them to his definition of Name-of-the-Father to see how Auster’s main characters end up being solitary and take shelter in writing which straightly deals with language as the main Lacanian essence of the unconscious due to the lack of father figure by going through a Moebius strip on the course of the Symbolic in what he calls manque due to alienation and hierarchy of object petit a. The two selected novels, intentionally his first and last, deal with similar questions and they both reflect Auster’s opinions on the role of solitude in life, providing us with a wide range of psychological possibilities to discuss Lacan’s notions concerning solitude on the main characters to find out how their distorted Lacanian orders made them be cast-outs, and how language is the signifier to compensate. A Lacanian research in the form of a poetics that can be an in-depth study of solitude to manifest how not going through the process of Lacanian subject formation analyzed under the mentioned notions could mold these left-out Austerian characters; for solitude is after all a contemporary complex postmodern issue of each one of us, as modern man, scrutinized in Auster’s characters’ lives seen through Lacan’s spectacles. Keywords: Auster, Lacan, 4 3 2 1, The Invention of Solitude, Solitude, Mirror Stage, Object petit a, Lacanian Orders, Name-of-the-Father, Moebius Strip, Manque, Language