Pale Fire

In 1967, Roland Barthes published “The Death of the Author,” which argues that a text’s meaning comes from interpretation rather than the author’s intent. How does Pale Fire support or reject this idea?

Zembla is a fictional country. What role do fictional locations play in the novel?

How does Kinbote’s misogyny affect his analysis of Shade’s poem? How does it color his depiction of his own story?

Shade notes that “Kinbote” means “regicide” in Zemblan. How does Nabokov use names to convey meaning or characterization in the novel? Choose three names and analyze their significance, whether they’re linguistically meaningful or reference other ideas or works of literature.

Pale Fire is full of literary allusions and references—the title itself comes from Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, for example, and Kinbote gives Shade a copy of Proust’s Bibliotheque de la Pleiade. Choose three allusions and discuss their significance in the text. What is gained by including these references?

In his footnotes, Kinbote references Professor Pnin, the protagonist of Nabokov's earlier novel, Pnin. Read Pnin and compare it to Pale Fire. How do the two novels intersect, and where do they deviate?

To what extent can Kinbote be classified as a voyeur? How does this affect his friendship with Shade? How do his actions—contrasted with assertions about their genuine friendship—situate him as an unreliable narrator?

The novel depicts several different types of afterlives. Which character is most obsessed with their own particular afterlife?