English 021 Creative Reading

Weblog - Category - E1 Pale Fire
The Anarchy Will Not Be Symbolized
E1 Pale Fire
by kparker

Pale Fire is not a royalist text; it is an anarchist text. That is, it advocates for no ruler at all: it is a treatise against left wing revolutionaries, monarchy loyalists, and religious leaders alike. It argues that true power has to come from within oneself, and all the...
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March 29, 2005, 09:18 PM
All That for Nothing?: The Afterlife as the Biggest Letdown
E1 Pale Fire
by jsese

In the words of Karl Marx, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” For the duration of John Shade’s life, Shade was adamantly against the calming effects of an ethereal...
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March 09, 2005, 12:39 PM
Verbal Artistry and Transformation in Pale Fire
E1 Pale Fire
by jhoffman

John Hoffman English 024: Creative Reading Verbal Artistry and Transformation in Pale Fire From the moment “the wind-borne black butterflies” (15) of John Shade’s incinerated first drafts flit across the lines of Charles Kinbote’s opening commentary, Pale Fire shimmers with visual imagery. Contrasts of red and green, of mountains and...
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March 08, 2005, 03:00 PM
Shattered Mirror
E1 Pale Fire
by jmurray

A Shattered Mirror First a few formalities. Zembla is not real; Jack Grey was actually an escapee from a mental institution who was “positively dying of raghdirst (thirst for revenge)”; (85) and Kinbote is not delusional. Botkin, that little-known character referenced in the index, created both Kinbote and his delusions,...
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March 08, 2005, 02:56 PM
An Ecosystem of Art: Symbiotes, Scavengers and Parasites in Pale Fire
E1 Pale Fire
by aahearn

An Ecosystem of Art: Symbiotes, Scavengers and Parasites in Pale Fire Charles Kinbote burrows into John Shade’s life like a “tick...botfly...worm” (171) tunneling into its host: he peers into his bedroom windows, apes his prose style, tags along on his nature rambles, and seeks him out in his bathtub....
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March 08, 2005, 02:50 PM
The End in Sight
E1 Pale Fire
by rmccally

John Shade’s poem, “Pale Fire”, is totally shrouded by its author’s preoccupation with death. Shade has been questing for an understanding of the afterlife since he was young, and his obsession appears in nearly every stanza of the poem. It seems like an interesting coincidence that Shade would write such...
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March 08, 2005, 02:45 PM
Interlude Between Life and Death
E1 Pale Fire
by bellwang

“Man’s life as commentary to abstruse / Unfinished poem” (l. 939-40) sketches the outline of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Pale Fire”. John Shade struggles to discover “what doom / [awaits] consciousness beyond the tomb” in his autobiographical poem comprising the first section of the novel. In the second section of the novel,...
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March 08, 2005, 02:44 PM
An Act of Thievery
E1 Pale Fire
by sstewar2

Since Dr. Charles Kinbote presents no concrete evidence about John Shade’s intention to let him write a commentary about or even to claim ownership of Pale Fire, it is evident that Dr. Kinbote stole Pale Fire from John Shade. Kinbote states that right after Shade was murdered, he convinced Shade’s...
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March 08, 2005, 02:30 PM
Numbers, Infinity, Iris Acht, and Alphabetical Order
E1 Pale Fire
by pdecoste

Vladimir Nabakov’s Pale Fire supposedly ends in the death of the poem’s author John Shade. This is, however, not the case. Pale Fire is not a tale of death but of cyclical and infinite life. When the number “8” is taken symbolically and coupled “1” and the alphabetical arrangement...
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March 08, 2005, 01:53 PM
The Grim Reaper Plays Chess
E1 Pale Fire
by lcolon

Despite a final suggestion that all of life’s events are random and unplanned, structure and order guide the actions of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. The story is built like a chess game, with alternating movement of the white and black sides. This seems to juxtapose good and evil elements within...
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March 08, 2005, 01:34 PM
Coincidence of Loneliness in Pale Fire
E1 Pale Fire
by began

There are connections in life that often seem like they are completely unrelated and are often explained as mere coincidences. Conversely, when connections in texts are located, readers assume the author made a deliberate attempt to emphasize a certain theme or symbol. Vladimir Nabokov?s Pale Fire is filled with coincidences...
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March 08, 2005, 01:27 PM
death is inevitable
E1 Pale Fire
by jsimpson

Jonique Simpson English 021 Creative Reading March 8, 2005 Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a conspiracy. In examining Kinbote’s commentary the connections evident between it and Shade’s poem are uncanny. In choosing his words, as early on as in the Forward, Kinbote inserts...
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March 08, 2005, 12:07 PM
The nature of identity
E1 Pale Fire
by kmcqueen

The loss of one’s home and familiar surroundings plagues individuality by forcing a character to rediscover his innate self. This lack of character stability in Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire indicates the importance of creating identity through reflections in literature. Charles Kinbote’s commentary is an attempt at self-reflection, yet his distortion...
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March 08, 2005, 12:45 AM
Communication: The Fluttering of Noise
E1 Pale Fire
by kanders2

One of the many reoccurring themes in Pale Fire is the question of how we are connected to the deceased. Shade and Kinbote both dwell on the destination of the human spirit once a life is past; Shade even reaches out to the spirit of his daughter, bagging for understanding...
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March 07, 2005, 10:04 PM
The Unseen Power of Green
E1 Pale Fire
by oradwan

Throughout Kinbote’s life, the color green acts as his chief adversary. The use of the color green in the commentary to Pale Fire accelerates and animates as the narrative winds to an end. In the king’s youth and during his escape from Zembla, the color green is a minor,...
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March 07, 2005, 07:35 PM
"Lost in Translation"
E1 Pale Fire
by acathcar

Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire presents a dialogue between two writers. John Shade, an acclaimed poet, painstakingly writes the semi-autobiographical poem “Pale Fire.” Then, after his premature death, his colleague and neighbor Charles Kinbote edits Shade’s poem and attaches an extensive commentary. Although Shade is the true writer of the poem...
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March 07, 2005, 06:03 PM
E1 assignment
E1 Pale Fire
by mphillip

Write a 4-5 page analytic essay on Pale Fire, one that illuminates a subtle message of this most puzzling novel. You may bring in Wilde or Wallace for points of contrast, but the agenda of this essay is to prove something interesting – and, let’s hope, even surprising – about...
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March 06, 2005, 12:51 AM