THE LOCALIZED HERO AND ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM IN THE MUSIC OF CHANCE BY PAUL AUSTER
Abstract
Paul Auster is a prominent American novelist, critic and poet: he was a Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction finalist for his novel, The Music of Chance. This book’s protagonist, Jim Nashe, is an ex-fireman who has left his job and family to drive around the country and to earn money while running out of money. He and his friend named Pozzi found wounded on the motorway by him decide to gamble to make money easily: yet they are trapped in a house and forced to make a “wailing” wall because of their gambling debts for their losing. On the other hand, because Jim was a vagabond before his enslavement, Auster invokes Thomas Nashe’s picaresque novel, The Unfortunate Traveller. Critics allegorically address Jim’s home confinement from both spiritual and physical perspectives. Jim’s ethnic and cultural foundations inform his behaviors. An ethnic Jew, Auster illustrates the suffering of Holocaust survivors. Jim Nashe’s experiences are similar to those of Jews in the Holocaust or the Pogroms. He lives in a space that limits his freedom: he prefers death to living this way. The same characteristics of protagonist/writer offer a sophisticated plot for readers. Because the reader must know both the writer’s life and novel’s witty nuance. In this study, we examine Jim’s incarceration and the reasons for it.
Keywords
References
- AUSTER, Paul (1990). The Music of Chance. London: Faber and Faber.
- BARONE, Dennis (1995). “Introduction: Paul Auster and the Postmodern American Novel” Beyond the Red Notebook: Essays on Paul Auster. ed. Dennis Barone. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1-26.
- BELLETTO, Steven (2012). No Accident, Comrade: Chance and Design in Cold War American Narratives. New York: Oxford University Press.
- BRAY, Paul (1994). “The Currents of Fate and 'The Music of Chance.' (Analysis of Paul Auster's Novel) (Paul Auster/Danilo Kis)”. The Review of Contemporary Fiction 14 (1): 83-85. https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-15073820/the-currents-of-fate-and-the-music-of-chance-analysis [27.06.2015].
- DOTAN, Eyal (2000). “The Game of Late Capitalism: Gambling and Ideology in the Music of Chance”. Mosaic 33 (1). https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-62383975/the-game-of-late-capitalism-gambling-and-ideology [27.06. 2015].
- IRVIN, Mark (1994a). “Inventing 'The Music of Chance.' (Analysis of Paul Auster's Novel) (Paul Auster/Danilo Kis)”. The Review of Contemporary Fiction. 14(1) https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-15073778/inventing-the-music-of-chance-analysis-of-paul [27.06.2015].
- IRVIN, Mark (1994b). “Memory’s Escape: Inventing The Music of Chance – A Conversation with Paul Auster”. Denver Quarterly 28 (3): 111-22.
- LITTLE, William G. & AUSTER, Paul (1997). “Nothing to Go on: Paul Auster's "City of Glass". Contemporary Literature 38 (1): 133-63.
Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Publication Date
December 23, 2016
Submission Date
October 13, 2016
Acceptance Date
-
Published in Issue
Year 2016 Number: 36