Subject
Query: parenting and PF (Hazel's unattractiveness)
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I'm new to the list and looking for some ideas on an aspect of Pale Fire
which I find problematic (I'm teaching the book for the first time next
semester). I've tried searching the archive for existing remarks on this
problem, and although I found an intelligent email on a related topic
(does Hazel commit suicide because she can't get a date, or, more
likely, does she happen to kill herself after a failed date?), I can't
find anything on this. I'd be grateful for either ideas from list users
or some suggesgtions for reading.
This is the problem. Why does it bother the Shades so much that their
daughter is unattractive? The cliche 'a face only a mother could love'
is based, like many cliches, on an accurate observation - that normal,
loving parents delight in the faces of their children, even though those
faces are not delightful to most casual passers by. Instead of sobbing
in the men's room when Hazel plays Old Mother Time (I think; don't have
my copy on me), why isn't John Shade simply bursting with pride that his
daughter has such a major role, and thinking to himself with delight
that your insipid, conventional beauties might be all right for the
boring heroine, but it takes talent to play a character role. Hazel is,
it seems, intelligent, quirky, independent-minded - why on earth are
they so miserable about her? And why are they so sure she'll never marry
or have children? Of course it's easier for attractive people to find
dates than unattractive people. But the Shades must know as well as
we the readers do that plenty of extremely unattractive people, or even
people who've suffered the kinds of injuries which have a terrible
impact on appearance, have long happy marriages, while plenty of
beauties do not.
This matters to me, because it seems to upset the whole moral balance of
the book. In other respects the Shades are sane where Kinbote is insane,
both in mental health (eg delusions, paranoia) and in their values in
life. Yet in this respect they seem to be really terrible parents, the
kind of parents who take a child with a problem and make it ten times
worse by their visible disappointment in the child for having the
problem at all. Indeed if the Boyd hypothesis is correct, this odd moral
weakness for physical beauty is built into the fabric of ghostly
tenderness in the book, since Hazel's 'reward' for enduring ugliness in
her human life is to become a beauty as a butterfly. Is it just me, or
is this unpleasant and shallow?
Thanks for your time, and apologies if this is an old chestnut for
Nabokovians.
Elspeth Jajdelska
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
which I find problematic (I'm teaching the book for the first time next
semester). I've tried searching the archive for existing remarks on this
problem, and although I found an intelligent email on a related topic
(does Hazel commit suicide because she can't get a date, or, more
likely, does she happen to kill herself after a failed date?), I can't
find anything on this. I'd be grateful for either ideas from list users
or some suggesgtions for reading.
This is the problem. Why does it bother the Shades so much that their
daughter is unattractive? The cliche 'a face only a mother could love'
is based, like many cliches, on an accurate observation - that normal,
loving parents delight in the faces of their children, even though those
faces are not delightful to most casual passers by. Instead of sobbing
in the men's room when Hazel plays Old Mother Time (I think; don't have
my copy on me), why isn't John Shade simply bursting with pride that his
daughter has such a major role, and thinking to himself with delight
that your insipid, conventional beauties might be all right for the
boring heroine, but it takes talent to play a character role. Hazel is,
it seems, intelligent, quirky, independent-minded - why on earth are
they so miserable about her? And why are they so sure she'll never marry
or have children? Of course it's easier for attractive people to find
dates than unattractive people. But the Shades must know as well as
we the readers do that plenty of extremely unattractive people, or even
people who've suffered the kinds of injuries which have a terrible
impact on appearance, have long happy marriages, while plenty of
beauties do not.
This matters to me, because it seems to upset the whole moral balance of
the book. In other respects the Shades are sane where Kinbote is insane,
both in mental health (eg delusions, paranoia) and in their values in
life. Yet in this respect they seem to be really terrible parents, the
kind of parents who take a child with a problem and make it ten times
worse by their visible disappointment in the child for having the
problem at all. Indeed if the Boyd hypothesis is correct, this odd moral
weakness for physical beauty is built into the fabric of ghostly
tenderness in the book, since Hazel's 'reward' for enduring ugliness in
her human life is to become a beauty as a butterfly. Is it just me, or
is this unpleasant and shallow?
Thanks for your time, and apologies if this is an old chestnut for
Nabokovians.
Elspeth Jajdelska
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm