Frye, Mitch. Performing Tyranny, Purloining Authority: Nabokov’s Dictators. 2013

The article argues that because Nabokov fled from two tyrannical regimes before finding sanctuary in McCarthy-era America, one naturally expects his fiction to seriously engage the theme of authoritarianism. And, indeed, works ranging from the early short story "Tyrants Destroyed" to the prose-poem "centaur" novel Pale Fire address the problem of political tyranny, but what is most striking about such texts is how they find the author himself role-playing in the persona of the authoritarian. Nabokov's cruel metafictional disposition towards his characters and his repurposing of totalitarian discourse both suggest a creative appropriation of tyrannical practices. Moreover, Nabokov's strict control of textual meaning (evident in his staunch rejection of theory and his brutal interactions with critics) argues for the supreme authority of the creator, leaving him as much authoritarian as author. Nevertheless, his vision of the ideal political state is decidedly democratic and anti-authoritarian; thus, he usurps the authority of the tyrant for the purpose of destroying it. This strategy of using narrative to mediate and critique a powerful political archetype finds a precedent in Milton's seventeenth-century appropriation of monarchical discourse and prefigures DeLillo's modern efforts at representing extremist terrorism.