Pale Fire: Illustrated Sports Illustrated Sports Pale Fire Journal | Page 78

Q: What can I possibly do without answers?
A: (1) Page 93: “Dear Jesus, do something.”
EXPLANATION: The idea of this paper was to illustrate the many differ-
ent interpretations possible for Pale Fire, specifically wrestling with the four pro-
vided to us in set 2. As all of these interpretations had to do with ‘identity’, I
chose a narrative device (the pieces of paper) that would make ‘identity’ as plu-
ralistic and vague as possible. The idea was that, going into the ‘interview’, the
Detective didn’t have a clue what he was signing up for. He didn’t know who
was alive, what the details of the case even were - he could be likened to some-
body who read the back cover of Pale Fire, and only knew going into it that
there was a murder, surrounded by a lot of confusion. This is why he and his
wife appear to be distinctly separate from the characters of Pale Fire - they are
meant to represent the reader, as opposed to a part of the novel.
Much of the potential meanings the reader might derive were written in
such a way that the Detective himself missed them. For example, though he cer-
tainly considered the notion that there was only person behind the door, it
seems as though he most strongly believed that there were two. The very first
quote from the novel, however, references a line in Shade’s poem, which talks
about ‘cells interlinked within one stem’. This idea is a hint that there may very
well be one person behind the door, playing multiple ‘characters’ who are all in-
terlinked within the ‘stem’ of the singular figure. This still doesn’t mean that the
reader should trust this implication, however. Every note card is part of a game.
This is hinted at when, after being asked “Are you insane?”, Handwriting 1
states that it is one of the many things which they pretend to be. The reader is
made aware that nothing which is claimed or implied should be taken at face val-
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