Pale Fire: Illustrated Sports Illustrated Sports Pale Fire Journal | Page 102

Gradus’ life. On page 151, Kinbote goes into detail about Gradus’ past work ex-
periences in Zembla, and on page 77 Kinbote goes into details about his child-
hood. In fact, Kinbote states that Gradus’ father died many years ago, similar to
Kinbote’s father (77). Gradus and Kinbote both have people in their lives that
they’re intimidated by; the King with Gradus and Shade with Kinbote. They
both have someone in their life that they obsess over and plan their every move
in accordance with. Based on their similar actions, it is easy to see how Gradus
and Kinbote could be seen as reflections of one another.
At a first glance, the characters of Hazel and Kinbote seem nothing alike.
However, when one delves deeper into the lives of each character, many overlap-
ping characteristics arise. The characteristic of note would be their relationship
with John Shade. Shade acts as a fatherly figure to both Hazel and Kinbote; he is
the literal father of Hazel, but throughout the book, it is also sensed that Kin-
bote and Shade have a similar meaningful relationship. Not only is Shade con-
siderably older than Kinbote (Shade is 62 at the time of his death (13)), Kinbote
also looks up to Shade in a way that a child might look up to a father. Kinbote
greatly admires Shade, and Kinbote is quoted as saying he “experienced a great
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