Thursday, November 5, 2009

A mirrorless existence

We've been looking as Pale Fire as Kinbote's creation of a mirror image of his reality. But there may be another way to look at it, too, as a man unable to see himself. For example, the one physical feature that makes us individuals is also the one thing we can not see ourselves, our face. I remember a tale (but I can't think of title at the moment) about a family living without a mirror. Everyday they would help each other dress and brush their hair and everything that we generally do in front of a mirror. One day they finally did get a mirror, but to their horror they looked nothing like what they thought they would. They were so upset by their reflections that they immediately threw the mirror out, and went on, happily unaware of of their features, except what they imagined themselves to look like.

Isn't that what Kinbote is doing? He can't see himself, so me makes up a whole new person; or perhaps he did see himself at one time, and was so upset by it, that he created a new, imaginary image.

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On a side note: I think I'm going to write my paper topic on the one point perspective. In both Lolita and Pale Fire the reader has no choice but to trust and believe HH and Kinbote (respectively) because that is the only lens through which events are seen. The reader can't choose not to believe the point of perspective because then there would be no point reading them in the first place.

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