紐約三部曲，顧名思義，是三個關於後現代資本首都，紐約，的故事。然而，作者並未著重描繪後現代城市，迥異於後資本觀點如：物化、戀物癖、時尚、為主的敘事，而著重於描述身處於後現代空間主體如何因應、如何遭遇挫折、心態如何變化的現代啟示錄。
空間形塑主體，主體也反之形塑空間。現代空間所帶來的整齊清潔的身份認同童話已然消失，代之而興的，是後現代破碎、曖昧、精神分裂、主體消失的超現實空間，在這個獨特的空間場域裡，本論文試圖分析紐約人在紐約此一獨特空間之作為：透過行走、書寫、命名、記憶、偵察、地圖認知等方式來定位/重新定位/喪失定位的過程。
悲劇在於，籠罩於後現代的的烏雲下，雖然現代主義式英雄早已是一條死路，但提不出任何新的突破之路的主角們，終究不由自主地，以舊式現代主義英雄式的方法去探究、去找尋，去試圖重整秩序，緊接著便是，在這做玻璃之城裡，去失望、去挫折，去瘋狂，去死亡。

Space is an influential, even determining factor to establish concerning subjectivity, and vice versa. The modern space and its fairy tale-type ordered/reasoned/omniscient city dwellers and detectives have already proved to be just an illusion. The world is no longer a comprehensible and legible universe. The omnipotent position the humans believe they firmly stand is just an ideological illusion. What exists in New York now is a hyperspace with ambiguity, contingency, self-dislocation, schizophrenia, and pastiche.
Even though Auster’s texts are frequently regarded as postmodern, the Postmodernity is delineated and constructed not upon the illustration/configuration of the late urban capitalism logic which Jameson sees as the dominant features, but upon the textual characteristics of meta-fictionality and the self–deconstruction.
But the New York tragedy is, facing with the mental crisis of the new age, the protagonists, or the heroes, the representative of every city dwellers living in the “mutation of the built space,” can’t propose any efficient and effective resolutions. The modernist efforts are proved to be a failure along with the changing of the city. Even though we know the condition is different, we still can’t have a new way to overcome our incapability and incompetents. This failure leads to various crises of subjectivity, ending in disappointment, frustration, disappearance, madness and death.
So, in this dissertation, I will attempt to analyze the behaviors of New Yorkers and the way they take actions: through the ways of writing, walking, naming and remembering, they endeavor to orient/reorient/disorient themselves in this particular the biggest late capitalism metropolis.

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