Pale Fire: Illustrated Sports Illustrated Sports Pale Fire Journal | Page 84

Analysis 3
There are many different characters in this text who often tend to form paired
relationships with one and other (Pair Pressure).
Pair
Sybil and John Shade
Quote
“Aside from the varitable clarion of internal evidence ringing
Analysis
Throughout the novel, including Shade’s poem, Sybil and
throughout Canto Four, there exists Sybil Shade’s affirmation (in a John Shade appear together often, therefor, establishing
document dated July 25, 1959) that her husband ‘never intended
them as one pair of characters.
to go beyond four parts’” (14).
Identical table tennis
twins
“ I explained I could not stay long as I was about to have a kind of
little seminar at home followed by some table tennis, with two
charming identical twins, and another boy, another boy” (23).
John Shade and Kinbote
Odon and Nodo
This unnamed set of twins with possibly one or two more
boys added to the mix suggests the idea of pairs of char-
acters reflecting and paralleling each other.
“Well, was it not his birthday yesterday? Yes, it was, but after all Kinbote often talks about Shade, however, in this pas-
are not birthdays mere conventions? Conventions or not, but it sage Kinbote states that he and Shade have the same
was my birthday too—small difference of sixteen years, that’s birthday, proving a connection between the two charac-
all” (161). ters.
“… Nodo, Odon’s epileptic half brother who cheated at Nodo and Odon are half-brothers, suggesting that they
cards…” (150). could be one half of a whole character. Their names are
also reflections of each other which follows the point
that character pairs may reflect each other or parallel
other pairs.
Kinbote, Shade, and “A newspaper account of a Russian tsar’s coronation had, instead Each of these three words could symbolize different
Sybil/Hazel/Gradus of korona (crown), the misprint vorona (crow), and when the next people in the novel. The word crown may stand for King
day this was apologetically ‘corrected’, it got misprinted a second Kinbote. The crow could stand for John Shade since he is
time as korova (cow)” (260).
a poet, and poet’s poetry is sometimes referred to the
poet’s song, and crows are known for singing. Also, John
Shade is potentially the “waxwing” which is a bird he
compares himself to in the first line of his poem. Finally,
‘cow’ could stand for multiple people . ‘Cow’ can be
used as a derogatory word to describe a female, which
may refer to Sybil or Hazel. It also may describe someone
who is dumb, big, and rather unattractive, which charac-
terizes Gradus. This grouping of words that were meant
to be written as one word parallels the grouping of these
characters that may all just be one person.
Announcer 1: That’s an interesting display of information, Jill! Finally, we saved
the best for last. The most favored team and top dog this whole season: Insane
in the Membrane!
Analysis 4
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