Judgement Day Pale Fire Journal Judgement Day Pale Fire Journal | Page 17

implies very strong adjectives that suggest information only the king would
know about himself. We can follow that by acknowledging if Kinbote, the
King, is extremely well versed in literature, that he could know who John
Shade is as a poet and simply appreciates the fact that he is being pro-
tected, in a new country, by a poet he knows and likes. Also, in terms of
Kinbote referring to other people as “inferior”, it could very well be the fact
that he has been raised as a king, and oftentimes, kings are viewed as
people who are above everyone else.
Plaintiff: Kinbote, doesn’t just like John Shade, he his crazily obsessive
over him. After John Shade passed, the notecards on which his last poem
was written, were taken by Kinbote. He didn’t just put them in a drawer to
keep the poem safe. Instead, he describes that he “wore it, as it
were…” (300). And then goes on to say, “twenty in the right-hand pocket of
my coat, as many in the left-hand one, a batch of forty against my right
nipple and the twelve precious ones with variants in my innermost left-
breast pocket” (300). Finally, Kinbote reveals that he “sewed up all four
pockets” (300). This kind of behavior shows how much Kinbote is fixated
on every bit of Shade’s work and life. Sewing the pockets of his jacket that
hold the index cards of the poem, and then wearing it, is a fanatical an-
swer to protecting Shade’s final piece. Also, knowing the number of cards
in each pocket just supports the idea of Kinbote’s stalker, obsessive be-
havior.
Defendant: Kinbote may, in fact, just be the King trying to preserve his
close friend’s legacy through holding on the poem. By publishing the po-
em, he not only can keep Shade’s story alive, but he can preserve his own
in the process. At the very end of the story, after John Shade’s death, Kin-
bote reflects on the whole journey. He claims that he may hear a voice
ask, “‘And you, what will you be doing with yourself, poor King, poor Kin-
bote?’” (300). Kinbote then ponders, “I may join forces with Odon in a new
motion picture: Escape from Zembla (ball in the palace, bomb in the pal-
ace square) … I may sail back to my recovered kingdom…” (301). The
way he contemplates what he will do seems as if he’s dreaming to go back
home, implying that he had a life in Zembla before the events of the story
unfolded. Kinbote is just an exiled king who is longing to return to his
homeland,