Spaces of Memory: Performing Identity in Travels in the Scriptorium

Abstract

[Abstract] As Michel Foucault said in his text Of Other Spaces, ―the great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as we know, history‖ (22). Although with the turn of the century this obsession has been gradually diluted, giving rise to a balanced equilibrium between the studies of time and space, there are still many authors in whom this change of perspective has not been studied. In books such as The New York Trilogy, American author Paul Auster has discussed questions of space, but also of identity. This Master‘s thesis studies how space and identity are applied in Auster‘s book Travels in the Scriptorium, a novel that has been briefly studied and whose main character, Mr. Blank, develops a fragmented identity within a contingent space. To this end, it will focus on two themes: first, memory, and second, the aforementioned space. The Master‘s thesis will attempt to articulate how a character with a fragmented memory in a closed and uncertain space can (or cannot) construct and deconstruct his own identity from different elements. Thus, firstly, it will be studied how his fragmented memory affects this character not in the recovery of his identity, but in the creation of a new one based on his lack of empathy and in the disruption of his personality. Secondly, it will be studied how the closed space in which Mr. Blank appears influences his construction of an identity, considering the concepts of spatiality and agency, and studying how fear manipulates space. Finally, it will be studied how the spaces created along the plot develop in a parallel way resulting in a series of heterotopias.