Nabokov's "Pale Fire" fractures the traditional doppelganger story (as do his other novels, such as "Despair," "The True Life of Sebastian Knight" and "Lolita"), which often points on clear black-and-white doubles (Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" comes to mind), coloring the nuanced tones between the aptly named John Shade and his commentator, Charles Kinbote. Several instances blur the line between the two men; maybe one invented the other, maybe they are the same thing, maybe they invented each other. This is somewhat irrelevant, as there is quite conflicting evidence for all the cases to be covered in Nabokov's detective novel. What is important, rather, is that “Pale Fire,” the poem, ties into the commentary: neither could exist without the other. In the end it is the art that transmits, not the personality of any man; as Kinbote concludes, "Yes, I'd better stop. My notes and my self are running out... My work is done. My poet is dead" (300). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Nabokov immediately paints his twisted double theme with a favorite pigment, numbers. Kinbote tells us that Shade was "born July 5, 1898, died July 21, 1959" - he was alive for 61 years and 16 days (13). Furthermore, the 334 lines of the second and third cantos double (plus two more) the 166 lines of the first and fourth cantos. Kinbote also has an affinity for doubles, as revealed in the preface: "another tormentor asked me if it was true that I had installed two ping-pong tables in my basement. I asked, was that a crime? No, he said, but why two? "Is it a crime?" I replied and everyone laughed" (21-2). Nabakov is known for his disgust towards doppelgangers; “The doppelganger is a great bore,” he once complained. Much of his fiction is devoted to advancing the doppelganger beyond the relatively simplistic clash between superego and id in previous literature. His puns - even "ping-pong" sounds like the same word repeated, are often ironic and aware of his crime novel intentions: "...I was going to hold a kind of little seminar at home followed by a little of ping-pong, with two charming identical twins and another boy, another boy" (23). Kinbote explains its purpose, even its existence, arguing that authorial intent is meaningless without a guiding hand: "...without my notes Shade's text simply has no human reality at all from the human reality of a poem like his...must depend entirely on the reality of the author and his surroundings, attachments and so on, a reality that only my notes can provide...for better or for worse, it is the commentator who has the final say" (28-9). Shade's "annexes" seem to be an indirect reference to Kinbote himself, in addition to Kinbote's conceit that not only is an author's work incomprehensible without the addition of the critic's eye, but that the author's life was also tempered by Kinbote's presence. Whether this is Nabakov's view is difficult to ascertain given his mockery of Kinbote's comment - on the motive why Shade gave a hurricane the name Lolita: "Why our poet chose to give his 1958 hurricane a little-used Spanish name (sometimes given to parrots) instead of Linda or Lois, is not clear" - it seems more feasible that Nabakov believed that the original body of the artwork, and not its layers of skin, should stand the test of time. Please note: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay With its many matches and confusions (one of Gradus' aliases is.