Vladimir Nabokov is well known for creating philosophically complicated works. His way of tackling complicated topics and creating entertaining stories around them allowed him to tap into an audience that he would have been unable to reach otherwise. His work “Pale Fire” challenges readers to come to terms with their own homophobic biases by creating a character that blatantly misrepresents the poetry of an author he idolizes. Nabokov gave readers an extreme version of their own stereotypes of homosexuals and the grotesqueness of said person became so absurd that he could not be seen as founded in reality anymore. Charles Kinbote is portrayed as a somewhat scorned lover, seen as insane by his peers. The fantasy is truly broken for Kinbote when he realizes that the cantos following his foreword have very little to do with him in terms of content. Nabokovs’ own connections with homosexuality may have pushed him towards a narrative of homophobia because of the passing of his own brother, who had lived openly in terms of his own sexual identity. In an attempt to prove Freud wrong, Nabokov creates a character that is the perfect likeness to Freud's theoretical homosexual and places him in a realistic story.
The cantos of ‘Pale Fire’ focus primarily on Shade's grief over events in his own personal life. While he mourns over the death of his daughter, Shade attempts to study more on the philosophical concept of death and gain a better understanding of it. He speaks on his own beliefs as a child and how he did not have a clear understanding on death, only to accept as an adult that there really is no way to clearly understand death. Of course, in his writing, he can come to accept death as inevitable, but for Shade, there is no such thing as having all the answers. He, as an adult still wonders if there is an afterlife and tries to prepare himself for the possibility of one through writing on the topic and how death has affected him personally. In the commentary, Kimbote highlights specific lines in the story, attempting to insert himself into the narrative. He wants to immortalize his own story of royalty and exile at first by telling Shade about is past, but then takes matters into his own hands when he realizes that the author's work is not about him, but rather a topic Shade had deemed more interesting or important. Vladimir Nabokov never had an issue stating what bothered him in terms of modern writing. In interviews on ‘Pale Fire’, he is heard describing his disdain for the depressing and theatrical language. According to one specific interview by the BBC, he makes the argument that new works of literature “employ narratives that indulge their authors.” One way that he portrays this is through the egocentric criticisms of Charles Kimbote in ‘Pale Fire.’ The character’s need for constant attention and to be seen as ‘right’ by his peers and the author’s widow makes him appear manic in the later commentary. His need to find hidden meanings relating to himself and his country of origin shows how he is only able to see the author's work through a lens that is beneficial to his own narrative. He goes far enough to mourn the lack of his own narrative in the cantos and claims that “Without my notes, Shades text simply has no human reality.” Kimbote, in his egomania, is unable to see the story apart from himself and this leads him to completely misrepresent the story.
Kimbotes narrative, of course, rides on the metaphorical coattails of Shades' own work. The two characters represent different ends of a spectrum with Shade being seen as calmer and more collected and Kimbote being viewed as erratic and unorganized. The forward and commentary portion of the novel shows the perspective of imbote, who sees the world as either revolving around or conspiring against him, whereas Shades cantos focus on his more personal journey to understand and accept death. Kimbote is also obsessed with death, but more in that he is obsessed with preserving his narrative before he dies. The article ‘The Psychology of the Double in Nabokovs Pale Fire’ claims that Kimbote's obsession with creating a flattering narrative for himself proves his Zemblan identity to be more fantasy than fact, a detail that Kimbotes peers have already seemed to notice and decided to pity him for. If readers think of the different versions of Kinbote in ‘Pale Fire’ they can also see the point at which he “moves closer and closer to non-existence as he attempts more and more frantically to create a world in the image of his fantasy.” Kinbote fits the Freudian version of the mentally unstable queer person, and his own narcissism becomes the thing that kills him in the end.
Nabokov himself could be viewed as a person with a connection to the concept of homosexuality through a family member. The author's own brother, Sergei Nabokov identified as gay and was arrested because of his proclivities. Vladimir Nabokov would later be notified that his brother died in a concentration camp. It is possible that Sergeis death pushed Vladimir towards homophobia in his anguish. Authors like Jean Walton argue that the presence of Kinbote “was the means by which the author could explore his own partial complicity with the cultural imperatives that marginalized and eventually annihilated people like his brother.” In some ways, Vladimir can be viewed as complicit in the horrors of WWII and the use of concentration camps as he had said nothing to point towards negativity on the topic. His guilt over not making amends with his brother may be one of his reasons for creating a gay character that he could interact with. According to Frances Peltz Assa, Nabokov’s personal experience with loss may even be what influenced his inclusion of mental health disorders in his works. He agrees with Alfred Kazin stating that “it is what Nabokov holds onto, rather than what he has lost, that motivates him.” Nabokovs art celebrates his personal ability to persevere through tragic experiences in his own life and encourages other people with trauma to celebrate how far the have come in terms of recovery, and what they may have gained during the process.
It is also important to remember the time in which ‘Pale Fire’ was written and the political events that may have influenced the topic. When Kimbote’s tale of his home country, Zembla, many details about the place make it appear as a kind of communist society. Kimbote is described as a royal from a land in which the political environment differs from his current home making him appear unlikeable or possibly dangerous to his peers. The connection between Kimbotes homosexuality and his political views is fairly similar to American views on Communism during the Cold War. In the article ‘The Zemblan Who Came in from the Cold, or Nabokov's Pale Fire, Chance, and the Cold War,’ Steven Belleto describes this particular connection in greater detail, stating that “The aspect of Cold War political culture of particular importance to Pale Fire is the pervasive practice of eliding differences among the so-called enemies of democratic freedom to read homosexuals as political threats on par with Communists.” This connection has also made some scholars question whether Vladimir Nabokov was really homophobic, or if the homophobia in his narrative is intentionally ridiculous to make readers question the logic behind their own biases.
‘Pale Fire’ also serves as one of Nabokov's many attacks on Freud and Freudian thinking. Vladimir's own experience of having a homosexual sibling proved Freud's theories on the mental states of gay people to be incorrect. Surprisingly enough, Nabokov was not wrong to dislike Freud and his theories in terms of psychology. While it is true that Freud was an important figure for the focus, his theories on the science have been proven to be more based in myth than reality. His creation of a character that was “paranoid, megalomaniacal, disagreeable, jealous, petty, voyeuristic, and predisposed to seducing boys and young men” made clear how absurd these claims were when viewed in a narrative. This criticism of the implications of ‘Freud's homosexual,’ or at least the validation of said theories was dangerous to people like Nabokov's brother and it is possible that Kinbote serves as a painful example of what these theories imply of the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. Nabokov’s imaginary reality where Freud’s idea of homosexuality is the norm over the current concept that people have become more used to, is made real by his use of daily coincidences to guide the reader to specific points. Mr. Belleto understandably claims that “It is not the mediocre novelist's acknowledgment that both chance and coincidence exist in real life that annoys Nabokov but rather that popular nineteenth-century literary forms do not allow the chance to exist in a fictional world.” By creating a world of coincidence, Nabokov creates a narrative that is almost eerily realistic.
‘Pale Fire’ is a novel including two narratives, one founded in reality, and one in fantasy. The narrative founded in reality has been composed by John Francis Shade, who is writing his way through the trauma of his daughter's suicide as well as the death of his aunt. While he is trying to come to terms with his own mortality, Shades counterpart, Kinbote, has attempted to avoid mortality by forcibly inserting himself into shades narrative. Vladimir Nabokovs goal in creating a narrative with such an extreme character was to prove the absurdity of Freudian psychology. Nabokov had an intense dislike of Freud and his theories, especially because of how they appeared to be more founded in myth and bias than in reality. Theories like this would eventually lead to the rise of Nazi Germany and it is possible that Vladimir Nabokov blamed Freudian theory for the death of his openly gay sibling, Sergei. ‘Pale Fire’ is a criticism of and warning against the ludicrousness of homophobic and anti-communist propaganda in America during the cold war. Nabokov used his writing to show readers a world where their fears were a reality in an attempt to prove how incorrect they could be. By writing a story that is both educational and interesting, Vladimir Nabokov was able to reach a larger audience and possibly open some readers up to the possibility that their views were at least somewhat backwards.
Works Cited
Assa, Frances Peltz. “Nabokov the Psychologist.” Nabokov Studies , vol. 15, 2017. EBSCOhost , https://search-ebscohost-com.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2018830642&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Frances Peltz Assa argues that Nabokov's characterization of Humbert Humbert's treatment of ‘Lolita’ and his attempt in ‘Bend Sinister’ to elicit compassion from his readers both make use of insights that are completely consistent with recent studies on empathy. She also takes time to detail ways that Vadim's concerns about his memory in ‘Look at the Harlequins!’ are relevant to problems that have been studied in new research on memory. She describes how Nabokov's insights into creativity and imagination, as presented in his lecture 'The Art of Literature and Common Sense,' are supported by psychological research on mind and creativity, as well as arguing that Nabokov's short story, 'Cloud Castle Lake,' is consistent with findings from group psychology. In closing she argues that Nabokov's own psychological well-being in the face of exile and tragedy is consistent with recent findings on trauma, which punctures Edmund Wilson's theory that Nabokov harbored much resentment due to his suffering after the revolution.
Belletto, Steven. “The Zemblan Who Came in from the Cold War, or Nabokov’s ‘Pale Fire,’ Chance, and the Cold War.” ELH , vol. 73, no. 3, Fall 2006, pp. 755–80. EBSCOhost , https://doi-org.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/10.1353/elh.2006.0022.
This article presents a perspective on the revised autobiography, "Speaks, Memory," of writer Vladimir Nabokov. In his autobiography, Nabokov recounts two chance events that come to haunt his later life. He confines the treatment of homosexuality to elliptical code words. Furthermore, Nabokov links the chance inherent in language with the chance of homosexual political treason
BRUHM, STEVEN. “Queer, Queer Vladimir.” American Imago , vol. 53, no. 4, Dec. 1996, pp. 281–306. EBSCOhost , https://search-ebscohost-com.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.26304519&site=eds-live&scope=site
Steven Bruhm reviews the concept of homosexuality and homophobia in literature. Where Vladimir Nabokov is concerned, Bruhm argues that the inclusion of a truly ‘mad’ character proves Nabokov's belief that narcissism is an inherent trait of homosexuals. This being said, it is an acceptable narcissism that comes from the trauma of living in a society that views homosexuality as inherently criminal or sinful.
Roth, Phyllis A. “The Psychology of the Double in Nabokov’s Pale Fire.” Essays in Literature (Macomb, IL), vol. 2, 1975, pp. 209–29. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohost-com.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=1975110756&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Nabokov's employment of psychoanalytic theory, specifically regarding the double, is sophisticated, accurate, and the key to Pale Fire. Kinbote's assertions that he is Charles of Zembla, that Gradus is after him, and that Shade is writing "Solus Rex" are the products of a falsifying vision of doubling resulting from Kinbote's ambivalence toward himself. "Resemblances are the shadows of differences," Shade says. Nevertheless, +Pale Fire= is a game with a "correlated pattern," one created by Nabokov, in which the real relationships among Shade, Gradus, Kinbote, and their author are demonstrated. Shade and Kinbote seek to find a pattern to existence, a way of coming to terms with mortality, or Gradus. They fail because they attempt to collapse "a brilliant invention" with common reality, thereby destroying the permanence of the invention. Only Nabokov succeeds in the deliberate manipulation of the material of artistic consciousness as he demonstrates that art creates its own reality.
Walton, Jean. “Dissenting in an Age of Frenzied Heterosexualism: Kinbote’s Transparent Closet in Nabokov’s Pale..” College Literature , vol. 21, no. 2, June 1994, p. 89. EBSCOhost , https://search-ebscohost-com.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=qth&AN=9503103031&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Deals with homosexuality in writer Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire'. Sexuality of Kinbote, a character in Pale Fire', as a metaphor for something else; Plot of `Pale Fire'; Marginalization of Kinbote due to his homosexuality and delusions of royalty; Homosexuality as pathology; Homosexuality as comic inversion; Kinbote as a sexual dissident; Heterosexism of Nazi Germany.
Comments