Pale Fire: Illustrated Sports Illustrated Sports Pale Fire Journal | Page 79

value, because the entire purpose of the notecards, just like, in a sense, Pale Fire,
are meant to confuse and mislead.
As the writer, I definitely tried to imply that Handwriting 1 most strongly
resembled John Shade, and Handwriting 2 resembled Hazel Shade. Handwrit-
ing 2 references the line about “Taking her poor young life”, and when asked if
they are Kinbote, Handwriting 2 says ‘yes’, following this up with a quote from
the book which talks about “Resembling Hazel Shade in some aspects”. Hand-
writing 1, meanwhile, references being hunted by Gradus. On the other hand,
Handwriting 1 directly states that they are also Kinbote, and the name Shade is
used by the detective as an identifier, towards the end, that isn’t specified as ei-
ther Shade. The idea of all of this, is that it leads back to the concept of one per-
son in a room, pretending to be many people (this may or may not be true). Be-
cause this seems to be the underlying implication, but is also contrasted directly
by everything stated explicitly, we end with confusion, and a complete interpeta-
bility of meaning. Anything that the characters imply is contrasted by the fact
that they imply opposing things as well, and this is further muddled by the un-
derlying knowledge that any implications the person(s) on the other side of the
door make are part of an attempt to mislead the Detective.
I represented all four interpretations from set two in this piece. Handwrit-
ing 2’s ability to swap between quotes and hints implying that they are Kinbote
and Hazel, and the fact that this works towards the confusion element, incorpo-
rates the idea that this duality is a layer of confusion in the real novel Pale Fire.
The idea that the whole story takes place in an insane asylum, adds a layer of
confusion as well. We don’t know whether this is the writings of an insane per-
son exterior to the plot of the novel, and we can’t trust any of the characters that
any of the handwritings claim to be, because of this element. We are not guaran-
teed that there is any truth underlying the confusion at the surface. The piece
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