Judgement Day Pale Fire Journal Judgement Day Pale Fire Journal | Page 21

I now religiously put back after examining for the last time their precious
contents” (15). Kinbote treats the original copy of this poem with such
care, anyone could see that he values Shade’s literature greatly. That, or
maybe he cares more about Shade’s poem than he does about Shade af-
ter all. He also says that the handwritten transcript was “transferred by me
to a safe spot even before (Shade’s) body had reached the grave” (16).
Again, did he believe that this is what Shade would have wanted for his
project and its safety, or did he value the safety of Shade’s work more than
the man himself? Perhaps he even knew Shade’s death was coming, or
perhaps he orchestrated it…
As stated earlier, it was known that Shade had many problems with his
heart. “Shade said that with him it was the other way around: he must
make a definite effort to partake of a vegetable” (21). This hesitance to
maintain a balanced diet was likely the cause of his demise. Kinbote was
aware of this, too. When Shade tells him about a trip he plans to take with
his wife in the mountains, Kinbote says, “I started to calculate aloud in me-
ters the altitude that I thought much too high for John’s heart…” (182).
Aside from being a rather intimate level of information for Kinbote to know
about Shade, it offers more evidence of Shade’s heart problems. But just
because his heart could have killed him doesn’t mean it did. Kinbote had
both motive and ability to do the deed himself. He states in the text, “‘Oh, I
will kill him,’ I repeated under my breath...” (293). Short, sweet and obvi-
ous, right? But people say things like this sarcastically all the time, and in
the same breath Kinbote also says, “So intolerable was it to think that the
rapture of the poem might be delayed” (293). His reason for threatening
Shade was merely impatience in his speed of finishing the project that he
desperately wanted to read. And Shade had intended to share it with Kin-
bote once it had been finished. “And perhaps… he intended to ask my ad-
vice after reading his poem to me as I know he planned to do” (16). If he
only planned to read it to Kinbote, though, this must mean he never got
the chance to do so before dying. Should we assume that Kinbote could
not have been the killer because he would have been excited to hear
Shade read his poem? Or should we instead wonder how Kinbote knew
so much about the production of the poem if Shade never had the chance
to share those details with him?
We know that Kinbote “was forced to flee New Wye soon after (his) last
interview with the jailed killer” (17). Was this jailing an open and shut case,
or does Kinbote’s instinct to flee the area demonstrate something more,
perhaps his guilt in being the true murderer?
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