Pale Fire

John Shade is the author of “Pale Fire,” the centerpiece of the novel. He has been married to Sybil Shade for 40 years, and their marriage has endured the tragic loss of their daughter, Hazel. The marriage and tragedy form the thematic foundation of “Pale Fire” as Shade searches for meaning in a life that has given him joy and grief. His poem explores his struggle as he tries to comprehend the notion that Hazel might have reached the afterlife. He describes his brief stint at the Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter, a school dedicated to preparing people in case they find themselves in an unexpected afterlife. Shade finds the institute absurd, especially in the context of his own near-death experience in which a heart attack caused him to die for a brief moment. During this experience, he saw a white fountain, which he hopes is confirmation that there is something—or, indeed, anything—beyond death. His desperation is evident in the lengths he goes to track down a woman who describes a similar vision in a magazine article, only for Shade to find that her potential validation is a misprint. Eventually, Shade realizes that his relationship with Sybil is more meaningful than his search for meaning in life and the afterlife. While he may be beholden to the interconnected web of existence he describes in his poem, he describes his wife’s presence as the truly meaningful pursuit in his life, especially in the context of their daughter’s death.

While “Pale Fire” provides insight into John Shade’s thought processes, the poem is situated in the broader context of Kinbote’s voyeuristic observations. The poem is presented with a foreword, extensive (and often unrelated) notes, and an index (which is not typical of fiction). In Kinbote’s portions of the novel, Shade is seen in a very different manner. Kinbote praises him extensively, often taking the opportunity to condemn Sybil as an impediment to any potential friendship between the two men. Shade is glimpsed through windows as Kinbote stares enviously at the guests arriving for a dinner party and resents Sybil for not inviting him. Kinbote’s notes become an extension of his voyeurism and undermine his assertions that he knew Shade intimately. As depicted in Kinbote’s notes, Shade is cool and cordial and admires Kinbote. This contrasts with the authorial Shade who emerges from “Pale Fire.”

The contrast between Shade’s poem and Shade as seen by Kinbote suggests that there are two versions of Shade in the novel. His personality is left ambiguous—he is dead, so he cannot speak for himself except through his poem. The opaqueness of Shade’s character hints at the Postmodern idea of the impossibility of objectivity. There is no way to truly depict Shade, as these juxtaposing characterizations are two subjective realities in competition with one another. Rather than a single objective truth, the real Shade lurks somewhere between Kinbote’s obsession and Shade’s confession. Both versions of the character are filtered through so many emotions, practicalities, and literary flourishes that the audience can never truly know John Shade as anything other than as the author of “Pale Fire.”

Jakob Gradus is a Zemblan revolutionary who sets out to kill the exiled King Charles, only to murder the poet John Shade by mistake. Kinbote takes great care to track Gradus’s movement in parallel with the composition of “Pale Fire.” As Shade adds lines, Gradus moves across Europe and to America, adding a physical dimension to the intellectual composition. During this journey, however, Gradus is only ever seen from Kinbote’s perspective. His character is described as bumbling, uninteresting, and unintellectual. To the academic Kinbote (in reality, Gradus’s true target), Gradus embodies the revolution as a whole. Gradus and the other revolutionaries only exist to destroy beauty and poetry, which Kinbote believes is represented by both himself and Shade. Since Gradus is only portrayed through the eyes of his target, he is reduced to a perfunctory and barely thinking cog in a machine that destroys art and creativity.

Jakob Gradus, however, may not exist. The nature of Kinbote, the most unreliable of narrators, means that the information provided regarding Gradus cannot be trusted. Gradus tells the police that he is Jack Grey and has escaped from a local mental health hospital. Gradus becomes an illusion, conjured up by Kinbote and projected onto this individual as an extension of Kinbote’s delusions of grandeur. His disparaging depiction of Gradus, a roaming nemesis who drags the violence of the Zemblan revolution across continents and oceans, suggests that Kinbote’s story cannot be trusted. Gradus’s true identity is a mystery; whether he is Jakob Gradus or Jack Grey depends on how much the audience is willing to trust Kinbote.