Pale Fire: Illustrated Sports Illustrated Sports Pale Fire Journal | Page 21

a mental asylum like the other residents or courtyard. This being nearly immedi-
ately followed up with the statement “we sat in a cell of walnut and glass” (17)
with this room design seeming to be one of an asylum they’d put the mentally ill
in. In asylums like this, there are doctors and people to look after the ill, and at
one point the forward states “There was also the morning when Dr. Nattochdag,
head of the department to which I was attached, begged me in a formal voice to
be seated, then closed the door, and having regained, with a downcast frown, his
swivel chair, urged me "to be more careful."” (24) followed by the quote “What’s
more, you are insane.” (25). This clearly shows the correlation between the writ-
er of this and some type of facility for the mentally ill, rather than it being a true
story of some sort. The forward ends saying that the writer has a “carrousel in-
side and outside my head” (28) moving back to the amusement park reference
and what a lot of people would see as crazy (pointing at their head and moving
the pointer finger in a circle like a carrousel). All of this evidence even before
the poem and commentary goes to show that is could’ve all been made up by a
crazy person just telling a story. There is also multiple medical references like
“two distinguished medical men” (117) and “discussing hospital cots with the
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