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Does John Shade's autobiographical poem give an honest account of his
daughter's tragic life and of his own role in it? Or does the rather
little Shade tells us about these subjects suggest such gaps in his
consciousness as to amount to critical failings as a father and as an
autobiographer? Can we infer from the poem more than he knows about
himself, or wants us to know?
What kind of father was Shade? Did he nurture his daughter? Did he
help her to meet the ongoing challenges life burdened her with? Did
he help her to become strong and brave, and to have due regard for
herself as a person? Did he appreciate her unique beauty? Did he
perceive the immortal and holy spirit that lived within her? Or did
he offend it? Did he imagine that Hazel might become a well adjusted
and successful adult? Did he feel any responsiblity for her
unhappiness and for her tragic death? Was he contrite? Did he have
reason to be?
How well did Hazel's father understand her and her world? In his
poem, Pale Fire, he characterizes her fears, her fantasies, and even
her "force of character" as "strange". Could he see the world through
her eyes, and feel it as she felt it? Does the poet get inside her
head? What would Hazel say about her father? What DID she say? How
did he interpret her "ferocious" criticism and her rage? Did he ever
think about it and about what may have been behind it? Why doesn't he
tell us what it was about? In fact, after mentioning it, he deflects
his and his reader's attention by focusing on her physical
unattractiveness, at the cost of her dignity. (lines 354-55)
To what does the poet attribute Hazel's unhappiness? How accurate do
you believe John's view of this is? What other factors might there be
that he ignores? Are we sure Hazel was as ugly as her father made her
out to be? Was she not merely unattractive and asocial but blighted
physically and psychiatrically? Should we assume or conclude that she
was? Can we know, or is the novel altogether ambiguous, or can we
make an educated conjecture?
Is it plausible that Hazel was born wth incipient mental illness?
Does Ronald Laing's work suggesting that the genesis of schizophrenia
can be found in family relations illuminate our understanding of the
Shade household? How about the life of Temple Grandin? Grandin was an
autistic child who grew up to become exceptionally accomplished. (Her
work may have done more to alleviate cruelty to animals than the work
of anyone else in the world.) If John Shade knew what Grandin's
parents knew, would he have been a better poet?
What might Nabokov have said (or have actually said) about JS as a
father?
If it is true that Hazel was both remarkably unattractive and
emotionally disturbed, what would constitute good parenting? What can
we see of, or infer about, John as a parent? He helped his daughter
with her Latin; what else does he have to say about their
relationship? How does his skewed view of his daughter and of their
relationship bear on the poem and on its quality? Would he have made
a better father for Dolores Haze than for Hazel Shade? If Lolita had
been his daughter, and if Pete Dean had picked her up at the house on
a date, would Shade and Pete have had a good rapport?
If you assume that Kinbote's account of the night at the haunted
house was accurate, can you imagine how Hazel might have told it?
Were her parents good companions? Might their presence have
discouraged a manifestation of the spirit Hazel was hoping to
encounter? Is it possible that they DID "ruin" it and other of
Hazel's projects? Was Sybil's suggestion at the end (to return home
for a cream puff) appropriate?
What did her father think (while she was alive) of Hazel's
philosophical quest, which was so like his own? Did he take it
seriously? Did he encourage it? Did he participate in it (more than
pro forma) with her?
Hazel's spirit (as we learned from Brian Boyd) endured, but had she
survived physically, can you imagine that she would some day make the
discovery she was looking for in the haunted house, i.e. of
manifestations from the Beyond? Or that she would interpret
paranormal phenomena, or intimations of immortality, in a creative
and illuminating way?