Pale Fire: Illustrated Sports Illustrated Sports Pale Fire Journal | Page 62

complex character. This is not an accurate assessment of the evidence provid-
ed by the text. In fact, it seems that besides an ambiguous death and a crazy
neighbor John Shade lived a remarkable dull, simple, and average life.
To begin with, he lived in a normal place and had a normal job. It is true
that he was a professor which is not an office job, but let us be honest with our-
selves, he was not an underwater basket weaver or pirate hunter. He had a nor-
mal marriage with a wife who was by no means perfect. The marriage, like most,
was less than perfect as well they had lovers spats quite often and one would say
they resembled the typical old married couple (1962, 100).
In fact, thanks to the craziness of Kinbote, we are able to see just how repet-
itive John Shade’s life is. He is able to time out each evening of the Shade’s life.
When something is different it is out of the usual and Kinbote attempts to fig-
ure out what happened (1962, 89). This is just one example that shows what a
simple life Shade lived. Each night he had the same repetitive routine. Did the
same things at the same time in the same place to the point where it was almost
too predictable. It was to the point where it was possible to predict when his
foot was going to drop and what lights would be on in the house when.
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