Pale Fire: Illustrated Sports Illustrated Sports Pale Fire Journal | Page 52
fortable. As this log is being written doctors are making arrangements to make
the patient more at home. This may include adding a desk for him to write at.
Additionally, the word ‘lodgings’ as used in the forward of the book could also
refer to a place you stay on a vacation or something similar. As it so happens, in
the book Charles Kinbote is not writing from his home. This could explain why
the patient used the term ‘present lodgings’. This idea is reinforced when he
says, “there is a very loud amusement park” (1962, 13). Considering that there is
no amusement park near the hospital, or where Charles Kinbote was said to be
writing, we are worried that this may be the beginnings of schizophrenia in the
patient.
The patient seems to find great join in acknowledging his mental state in
discrete ways. For example, in a bit of dialogue, he has a character come right
out and call him insane (1962, 25). The word insane can have a few variations
when looking at the connotations. When used by a friend it can refer to an idea
or behavior that is simply out of the ordinary. However, in a much more tech-
nical way it can refer to someone who tries the same thing repeatedly and ex-
pects a different result each time. This seems to apply to the patient’s character
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