sembled [ him ] in some respects”( 193), even though she was a young woman and he was a middle-aged man. Kinbote also described the character of Disa as bearing“ a singular resemblance not, of course, to Mrs. Shade as she was when I met her, but to the idealized and stylized picture painted by the poet”( 207). John Shade describes himself as resembling the“ slapdash disheveled hat who ladles out the mash in the Levin Hall cafeteria,” and others claim she resembles Judge Goldsworth- so by extension, Shade resembles Goldsworth( 267). These direct comparisons, combined with the repeated words scattered throughout the novel, strengthen the idea that various characters are“ played” by the same person- or at least should be in the reader’ s mind- even when their stories and physical descriptions are completely different. This concept is abstract and not grounded in narrative realism, but it achieves the same effect as repeating actors in different roles on a stage; the audience feels something familiar between characters that aren’ t necessarily a part of each other’ s story, and those feelings create meanings- each of which are still openended and free for interpretation- better than if the characters were completely separate.
Nabokov uses the intricacies of language and form to create a story that rejects at-
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