Pale Fire by Nabokov and Watchmen by Alan Moore - Essay Example

Lecturer: 'Pale Fire' by Nabokov and 'Watchmen' by Alan Moore Introduction 'Pale Fire' is a novel that was written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1962. The novel was presented in 999 lines on a poem known as ‘pale Fire’ and it is an antecedent to post-modernism (Nabokov 42). It is a foreword and lengthy commentary, which disrupts the reader because the author forces the reader to move back and forth during the reading process. The author employed unique elements because of the tendency to expose the changeability and vulnerability of pre-recorded texts. The instability of the texts forces one to continually question the truth versus the falsehood, as well as, the hazy, shade lines, which culturally divided fiction from non-fiction. On the other hand, ‘Watchmen' is also another novel that was written by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in 1987. The ‘watchmen’ is a graphic tale, which originated from the description projected by Alan Moore (Moore and Dave 21). The novel provides reality narratives that took place during the year 1980s (Moore and Dave 32). It begins as a murder-mystery but attempts to reveal the American superheroes that changed the history when the United States of America won the Vietnam War. Therefore, Moore and Nabokov employed postmod in the novel writing because they wanted the ideal readers outside the text to interpret and help the writer to complete the text. Both novels of Nabokov and Moore contain formal elements that interrupt the normal experience of reading a novel, forcing readers to move back and forth during the reading process. The authors employed the postmod elements of writing because of varied reasons, and demands active role or requires the reader to pay more attention to the narratives or writings. They demand the reader to participate in the narrative; thereby, allows the reader to make their own comments towards the narratives. This structure of writing at times makes the reader to develop his or her textual elements within the narrative. For instance, the novel of Pale Fire has four main sections one of which is a short forward by Kinbote who celebrated the work of John Shade. Kinbote forwarded the work of Shade after the death of Shade but the front part is a long interpretation part; this is the part where Kinbote gets everything incorrect because it is a collection of false impression interpretation. The author uses different readers to portray the functionality of the text in order to reveal to the reader that perhaps the narrative have varied meanings and interpretations to different readers. Secondly, both authors wanted the perfect readers to construe and help the novelists to complete the text. The perfect readers are the ones who help the writer to complete the writing course effectively. Postmodern fiction makes use of every writing technique that so far has been used in tradition narratives; postmodern narrative theory invents a new methodology that constructs the whole narrative tradition and focuses only on the functionality of the work (surfiction) and the writing process (metafiction). It also focuses on the vagueness of the meaning, lack of legitimacy and focuses on the narrative idioms; for instance, there is lack of authenticity in the novel of Pale Fire because it is difficult for one to understand the legitimate author of the narrative. This is because Shades is revealed as the narrator of the novel but again Kinbote also contributes in forwarding the narrative by making commentaries, which divulges that the legitimacy is intricate to grasp in a broad sense and satisfying manner. Another formal element that disrupts the reader is the use of dissimilar narrative elements to problematise the relationship between the reality and fiction story. The postmodern writers attempt to reveal that there is nothing outside the text that can be supplied that is the reality within the textuality; for instance, the contemporary writer like Alan Moore employs postmod narrative techniques in his novel. Although Moore does not problematise the discrepancy between the text and reality more than Nabokov, Moore deals with contemporary issues, which embodies postmod elements for different purposes. The use of inter-textuality elements in both novels were meant to distinguish between the novel creativity and productivity aspects. Although there are differences between creativity and productivity when writing novels, in creativity, the author does not assume the existence of earlier materials but productivity assumes a pre-existence of raw materials. Texts have variations and inter-involvements of one text with another through quotations or insinuations, documentations and assimilations in fictional conventions have always been in place for decades. For instance, the noel of Moore constitute a pretext for other genres and texts in which extraordinary happenings, tragedy and irony are included, which in reality embody raw materials for productivity of multiple texts. The inter-textuality elements employed in both novels such as allusion, satire and imitation or interpretations interrupts the readers; for instance, Nabokov uses varied allusions such as “I was the shadow of the waxing slain” and “by the false azure in the window pane” (Nabokov 23). These allusions are revealed in the first two line of the 999-line poem of Shade and these quotations disrupt the reader when reading the novel. Moreover, the use of interpretations also is another element that was employed and some readers may concentrate on the narrative through focusing the relationship between the characters; for instance, the reader can construe that the spirit of John Shade influenced the donations of Kinbote in his writing process. The complicated structure of these novels confuses the reader; hence, one may be forced to move back and forth in order to clearly understand the storyline. Some formal elements such as meta-fiction, self-reflexivity and self-consciousness also disrupt the reading experiences of the reader. Metafiction is an imaginary writing, which methodically allures the reader to the status of the speaker, and this poses queries about the connection between the realism and fiction; for instance, the novel of Nabokov attempts to reveal fiction story was written by John Shade. Shade reveals diverse aspects of his entire existence and this poses the question of realism and fiction. Metafiction violates the normal novelistic prospects through testing the subject issue, chronological sequence and construction form from conventional categories. A self-conscious tale also declares the incongruity between the imaginary work and the realism seems to present humorous purpose. For instance, the novel of Moore uses self-conscious narrator for a comic purpose and to provide a realistic effect to the reader. According to (Quendler 56), self-reflective tale incorporates description reference into the imaginary story creation. The use of fictional elements where the author becomes the central characters was one way of creating the story real. This writing element attempts to infuse the poem with diverse meaning and interpretations that does not only come from the poem itself and the author but also from what the reader perceives in the novel. The efforts to correct certain meaning of the literary materials used in the poem and the interpretations creates tension between the annotator and the textuality elements within the novel; this can be revealed as Kinbote, the commenter of the novel who attempts to find ubiquitously opportunities to share with the reader his own accounts. Therefore, in this way, the reader attempts to reunite his or her expectations with what is being presented in the fiction work. In case the reader looks further, the tensions instigate fresh questions about what the author and the commenter of the novel are trying to put across or in what ways the annotations employed in the novel functions. Moreover, in order to answer such questions, it is vital to understand exactly the unconventional annotations employed in the novel in the first place and their departures from the norm guide to the response of the text. The reader will check on the academic marginal note doctrines and begin to problematise them; this kind of writing in the literally genre has been given reality little attention by postmodern novel writers and this forces the reader to rethink their perceptions towards such writing style. This will put the reader in a position to start thinking about their roles as readers and to understand that, beyond such tensions and dynamics created in the novels, the reader also plays an active role of determining the meaning of the novels. Moreover, the author of Pale Fire stated that “one cannot only read the book once, but also reread it” (Kinbote 2013, para. 5). The book has hidden complexities, which can only be understood after several attempts of rereading. The authors of both novels employed postmod elements because this was regarded as the significant piece of literature work in the latest 19th century (Schmidt 89). The complex structure, use of symbolism elements and metaphors were among the use of literary elements employed by many classical novel writers of the time. For example, the novel of watchmen is full of political satire and the author employed deconstruction elements to reveal the role of superheroes in the contemporary society. The comic elements and the textual elements adapted in the writing styles were among the postmod elements, which are trick but this forces the reader to move back and front in order to understand effectively. Moreover, the terrific opening of the narrative where the film begins to narrate about the murder mystery and investigations of the murder catches the attention of the reader (Moore and Jacen 16). This style of writing establishes the setting of the novel in an alternative world where masked retaliators have been a reality for many decades. The author uses also horror narratives and the meta-comic moved back and forth makes the story more interesting, whereby the predestined conspiracy and use of flashbacks were meant to make the reader to clearly understand the novel. Baron and Manfred (53) argue that it is vital to understand the motive of the author in order to differentiate between the realism and anti-realism. This is because many classical novelists have the tendency of writing a piece of work with a certain motive, and they opt to generate a fiction or non-fictional story that aims or focuses certain aspects in the contemporary world. For instance, the novel of Moore was written with a certain motive and this includes the political issues in the contemporary society. Although the authors disrupt the readers by use of flashbacks and other satirical or ironic texts, the novel is appealing to the reader (Lieber 11). Therefore, it is the role of the reader to read carefully and understand what the author is trying to put across. Before reading a novel, one must not only understand the motive of the reader but also the nature of the reader, as well as the way the textual elements operates. This is vital because it can link the motive of the author and the nature of the readers; thus understanding the way textual elements used in the novel operates effectively. In conclusion, both novels of Nabokov and Moore contain formal elements that interrupt the normal experience of reading a novel, forcing readers to move back and forth during the reading process. Different authors present their information in diverse way depending on the nature of the information under question as well as the level if indulgent the readers are anticipated to have. In this case, both authors employed postmod style in novel writing because of varied reasons. First, the authors also wanted the ideal readers outside the text to interpret and help the writer to complete the text. The authors used unrelated creative writing elements in order to problematise the liaison between the realism and fiction stories. For instance, the use of fictional elements where the author becomes the central characters was one way of creating the story real. They also employed formal elements such as meta-fiction, self-reflexivity and self-consciousness, as well as textual elements in order to connect the reader; thus allowing the reader to understand effectively. Lastly, the postmod elements were employed because this was regarded as the considerable piece of literature work in the late 19th century. Conclusively, the poems are very engaging and in-depth understanding of the scripts is necessary to ensure that one fully understands the ideas. Work Cited Baron, Christine, and Manfred Engel. Realism/anti-realism in 20th-Century Literature. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. Print. Kinbote, Charles. “Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire and the Role of the Literary Annotation in Reading”. Wordpress.com. 2013 Web. Lieber, Emma. "Having Faith in Nabokov's Pale Fire." Nabokov Studies. 11.1 (2009). Print. Nabokov, Vladimir V. Pale Fire: A Novel. New York: Putnam, 1962. Print. Moore, Alan, and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics Inc, 1987. Print. Moore, Alan, and Jacen Burrows. Alan Moore's Writing for Comics: Volume One. Rantoul, IL: Avatar Press, 2008. Print. Quendler, Christian. From Romantic Irony to Postmodernist Metafiction: A Contribution to the History of Literary Self-Reflexivity in Its Philosophical Context. Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 2001. Print. Schmidt, Kerstin. The Theater of Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005. Print. Read More