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Carolyn Kunin wrote "that Kinbote and Gradus are suppressed alternate
personalities of John Shade who are able to take over his consciousness
following the stroke described in the fourth canto... The insane John
Shade
("Kinbote") has to hide the poem because Sybil and several professors
want
to get it away from him, fearing what he might do with it... After
Shade's
personality is "killed" and the alternate personality of Kinbote
emerges, to
his wife and colleagues it seems that Shade has gone completely mad. He
is
hospitalized for a while, but manages to escape..."
Like Kunin, I believe (and have been developing for my senior honors
thesis)
a Shadean theory in which Kinbote and Gradus are alternate personalities
of
Shade's and I agree that Kinbote appeared when Shade had his October 17,
1958 heart attack.
One key element of my theory concerns the nature of the Oct. 17 attack:
I
believe it was a reoccurrence of Shade's childhood disorder, the
fainting
fit that begins to occur when he is eleven (140-46). In Kinbote's
commentary to the Oct. 17 account, he mentions "an alert doctor who as I
well know once confused neuralgia with cerebral sclerosis" (p. 250).
Neuralgia is a basic term describing shooting pains along the nerve
pathway
that can be caused by a variety of injuries to the nerves, while
cerebral
sclerosis is a rare central nervous system disorder affecting primarily
children - in which the nerves disintegrate, causing dementia. Shade
was
misdiagnosed as a child with neuralgia (which often accompanies growth
in
children) when he actually had cerebral sclerosis. The disease led to
deterioration of psychological faculties and development of dementia,
and
misdiagnosis and lack of treatment led Shade to suppress [or be
conditioned
out of] the effects of the disease until it resurfaced on October 17.
Cerebral sclerosis triggered the inadvertent surfacing of the Kinbote
personality.
Kinbote is a projection, or expression of, Shade's perhaps of his
suppressed
desires. Every facet of the Kinbote narrative, thus, stems from Shade's
mind and can be traced to information that would have been a part of
Shade's
psyche (Zembla, as an obvious example.) While Shade is composing the
poem,
he is trying to fight off the influence of the Kinbote personality. He
intentionally creates Gradus as another personality, a self-contained
assassin intended to destroy the Kinbote personality. Shade can
intentionally invent this new character by weaving him into the fabric
of
his poem; Kinbote comments on the power of art to render reality when he
points out "the basic fact that 'reality' is neither the subject nor the
object of true art which creates its own special reality by having
nothing
to do with the average 'reality' perceived by the communal eye" (p.
130).
The assassination of Shade on July 21 1959 as documented in the
commentary
to Line 1000 is actually the destruction of the John Shade personality
allowing the Kinbote personality to assume control of Shade's body. As
many
theorists have pointed out, this is problematic because other people
will
necessarily interact with this Kinbote-Shade. Unlike Kunin, I do not
believe Shade is hospitalized; rather, I believe that Kinbote's hasty
escape
to an isolated cabin in Cedarn, Utana is explained by the necessity to
not
be seen. Kinbote needs to escape because he still physically is Shade.
He
escapes to Utana with the poem, where he composes the Commentary and
then
commits suicide (before publication), for ultimately he cannot exist
without
Shade's psyche as fuel.
A variety of points of evidence point to the existence of Kinbote within
Shade's mind, as well as the creation of Kinbote from the Oct. 17
attack.
For one, as Kinbote observes, "John Shade's heart attack (Oct. 17, 1958)
practically coincided with the disguised king's arrival in America . .
."
(p. 246). Kinbote drops in to New Wye, entering Shade's reality, on the
day
of Shade's attack. In addition, the doctor who tends to Shade answers
his
"But, Doctor, I was dead!" with "Not quite: just half a shade"
(727-28). He
is now half-Shade: half himself, and half Kinbote.
Shade is a Pope scholar, and Kinbote is a king from Zembla, a
romanticized
Utopia derived from Pope's "Essay on Man." Zembla's existence relies
upon
Shade's creation of it, as Kinbote notes, "the miracle of a few written
signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought,
new
worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing" (p. 289). When
Kinbote grasps the poem at Shade's "assassination," he quotes Matthew
Arnold's The Scholar Gypsy," a poem about a scholar traveling through
the
mountains, finding shelter in a barn which parallels Kinbote's escape
from
Zembla: "In a hat of antique shape, and cloak of gray." Moreover,
Arnold's
poem also mentions "a dark red-fruited yew-tree's shade" (140) like the
L'if of Canto Three (498). Also when Kinbote is grasping Shade's poem,
he
observes, "I was holding all Zembla pressed unto my heart" (p. 289).
Evidence for the integration of Gradus as another personality within the
Shade psyche hinges on the origins of the name Gradus. In "Pale Fire"
Shade
references the art of counterpoint. Johann Fux's seminal 1725 text on
the
musical notion of counterpoint is entitled Gradus ad Parnassum (Step by
Step
Up Mount Parnassus.) In it, he describes a counterpoint of "note
against
note in three parts," asserting that "three part composition is the most
perfect of all . . . one can have a complete harmonic triad" (71).
Gradus,
thus, is a necessary incorporation to Shade's work which, when
incorporated with the input of his other personality, is the entirety of
Pale Fire.
This is just a basic sketch of what I am looking into; I invite the
queries
and points of finer discussion offered by others.
Tiffany DeRewal
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
personalities of John Shade who are able to take over his consciousness
following the stroke described in the fourth canto... The insane John
Shade
("Kinbote") has to hide the poem because Sybil and several professors
want
to get it away from him, fearing what he might do with it... After
Shade's
personality is "killed" and the alternate personality of Kinbote
emerges, to
his wife and colleagues it seems that Shade has gone completely mad. He
is
hospitalized for a while, but manages to escape..."
Like Kunin, I believe (and have been developing for my senior honors
thesis)
a Shadean theory in which Kinbote and Gradus are alternate personalities
of
Shade's and I agree that Kinbote appeared when Shade had his October 17,
1958 heart attack.
One key element of my theory concerns the nature of the Oct. 17 attack:
I
believe it was a reoccurrence of Shade's childhood disorder, the
fainting
fit that begins to occur when he is eleven (140-46). In Kinbote's
commentary to the Oct. 17 account, he mentions "an alert doctor who as I
well know once confused neuralgia with cerebral sclerosis" (p. 250).
Neuralgia is a basic term describing shooting pains along the nerve
pathway
that can be caused by a variety of injuries to the nerves, while
cerebral
sclerosis is a rare central nervous system disorder affecting primarily
children - in which the nerves disintegrate, causing dementia. Shade
was
misdiagnosed as a child with neuralgia (which often accompanies growth
in
children) when he actually had cerebral sclerosis. The disease led to
deterioration of psychological faculties and development of dementia,
and
misdiagnosis and lack of treatment led Shade to suppress [or be
conditioned
out of] the effects of the disease until it resurfaced on October 17.
Cerebral sclerosis triggered the inadvertent surfacing of the Kinbote
personality.
Kinbote is a projection, or expression of, Shade's perhaps of his
suppressed
desires. Every facet of the Kinbote narrative, thus, stems from Shade's
mind and can be traced to information that would have been a part of
Shade's
psyche (Zembla, as an obvious example.) While Shade is composing the
poem,
he is trying to fight off the influence of the Kinbote personality. He
intentionally creates Gradus as another personality, a self-contained
assassin intended to destroy the Kinbote personality. Shade can
intentionally invent this new character by weaving him into the fabric
of
his poem; Kinbote comments on the power of art to render reality when he
points out "the basic fact that 'reality' is neither the subject nor the
object of true art which creates its own special reality by having
nothing
to do with the average 'reality' perceived by the communal eye" (p.
130).
The assassination of Shade on July 21 1959 as documented in the
commentary
to Line 1000 is actually the destruction of the John Shade personality
allowing the Kinbote personality to assume control of Shade's body. As
many
theorists have pointed out, this is problematic because other people
will
necessarily interact with this Kinbote-Shade. Unlike Kunin, I do not
believe Shade is hospitalized; rather, I believe that Kinbote's hasty
escape
to an isolated cabin in Cedarn, Utana is explained by the necessity to
not
be seen. Kinbote needs to escape because he still physically is Shade.
He
escapes to Utana with the poem, where he composes the Commentary and
then
commits suicide (before publication), for ultimately he cannot exist
without
Shade's psyche as fuel.
A variety of points of evidence point to the existence of Kinbote within
Shade's mind, as well as the creation of Kinbote from the Oct. 17
attack.
For one, as Kinbote observes, "John Shade's heart attack (Oct. 17, 1958)
practically coincided with the disguised king's arrival in America . .
."
(p. 246). Kinbote drops in to New Wye, entering Shade's reality, on the
day
of Shade's attack. In addition, the doctor who tends to Shade answers
his
"But, Doctor, I was dead!" with "Not quite: just half a shade"
(727-28). He
is now half-Shade: half himself, and half Kinbote.
Shade is a Pope scholar, and Kinbote is a king from Zembla, a
romanticized
Utopia derived from Pope's "Essay on Man." Zembla's existence relies
upon
Shade's creation of it, as Kinbote notes, "the miracle of a few written
signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought,
new
worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing" (p. 289). When
Kinbote grasps the poem at Shade's "assassination," he quotes Matthew
Arnold's The Scholar Gypsy," a poem about a scholar traveling through
the
mountains, finding shelter in a barn which parallels Kinbote's escape
from
Zembla: "In a hat of antique shape, and cloak of gray." Moreover,
Arnold's
poem also mentions "a dark red-fruited yew-tree's shade" (140) like the
L'if of Canto Three (498). Also when Kinbote is grasping Shade's poem,
he
observes, "I was holding all Zembla pressed unto my heart" (p. 289).
Evidence for the integration of Gradus as another personality within the
Shade psyche hinges on the origins of the name Gradus. In "Pale Fire"
Shade
references the art of counterpoint. Johann Fux's seminal 1725 text on
the
musical notion of counterpoint is entitled Gradus ad Parnassum (Step by
Step
Up Mount Parnassus.) In it, he describes a counterpoint of "note
against
note in three parts," asserting that "three part composition is the most
perfect of all . . . one can have a complete harmonic triad" (71).
Gradus,
thus, is a necessary incorporation to Shade's work which, when
incorporated with the input of his other personality, is the entirety of
Pale Fire.
This is just a basic sketch of what I am looking into; I invite the
queries
and points of finer discussion offered by others.
Tiffany DeRewal
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm