本文是英语语言学博士毕业论文，本论文得出结论：纳博科夫的人物叙事小说通过主要人物讲述他们的个人故事折射出不同的隐含作者形象，集中体现了纳博科夫对人类社会极权主义现象、俄国自由主义以及历史的态度，是作者对 19 至 20 世纪人类社会的政治和道德文明的理解，也是其人物叙事小说的主要叙事伦理内容。
Chapter One Character Narrator and the Ethics of “Helix” inDespair
1.1 The Supercilious Hermann as Character
Hermann, the narrator and protagonist of this novel, is a man deserted by the narrativeworld he lives in. His relations to all the other characters are unpleasant. The relations between him and his wife Lydia, Ardalion and the tramp Felix are greatly developed in thestory. What we see is disgusting: he bullied his wife, though claiming a cloudless marriagewith her; he took advantage of Ardalion and retaliated by sending him away; he killed astranger Felix he met for only several times for his ulterior motivations. He is a bad husbandto Lydia, a monster to Ardalion, a madman to Orlivius and a murderer to Felix. All theserevelations of the relations between Hermann and the people around him lead to our distastefor this character—the first abominable villain superficially endorsed by early Nabokov.
Compared with Cincinnatus tortured by the totalitarian environment in Invitation to aBeheading, Hermann is portrayed as both the tortured and the torturer, not only a victim oftotalitarianism but a victimizer. In place of a man who is so ―cocksure about the power of [his]pen‖ (De 67) to manipulate those around him as if they were his literary characters, Invitationcreates a character who possesses an original creative vision, but who does not initially trusthis perceptions and has been cowed into conforming to the dictates of the characters aroundhim. Only until later did Cincinnatus learn to trust his own intuitions so that in the end he was able to―free himself from these oppressive constraints‖ (Cambridge 139). Hermann is constructed with themost salient features of a dictator: blind arrogance; severely violating others‘ rights andshowing no remorse; his paranoiac desire to prove his genius and power not only destroyinghimself but also people around him. This dictator-like Hermann regards himself as the saviorof the world just as he recalls the New Year‘s Eve dinner table scene when all the other mostseemingly close people dining with him to celebrate:
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1.2 The Ethics of Crime as Art: a Remorseless Narrator
This section intends to answer the following questions about the narrator in Despair:What is the ethical position of the narrator in relation to the told, the telling and the audience?How does Hermann the narrator regard his relations with other characters and his actionstowards them?
Hermann the narrator tells a story about himself that is still in progress at the moment ofhis writing and in which he is the only protagonist murdering a tramp for dubious motivations.As an unreliable narrator, Hermann admits his lying habit at the very beginning of the text.He invents a description about his mother and then tells us that all he has said is only his imagination. Therefore, from the very first two pages, Hermann displays his feignedself-confidence, his arrogance and untrustworthiness. What he says about his writing powercontradicts to the actual sentences we read. Many unfinished clauses, adverbials andrandomly inserted unnecessary transitional words leave a very bad impression on hisaudiences.
Hermann has misread and mis-regarded Ardalion‘s anger on two occasions. Hisrecollections about the events happened before his murder present a misreading of Ardalion‘sbehavior, which demonstrates his values, sense of himself and others. Two examples of thismisreading display the direct confliction of value systems between Ardalion and Hermann.The first is the scene happens on the lakeside which I have quoted in the last section. Here Irequote this passage for totally differently purposes and emphases.
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Chapter Two Character Narrator and the Ethics of “PninianWorth” in Pnin
2.1 The Playful Vladimir as Character
Vladimir is actually the center to get
