| The famous Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov is widely known as the master of fiction in 20 th century.Particular family education and exiled experiences evoke his thoughts about the ego and its consciousness.In the fiction,Nabokov made use of the artists' introspection on limitation of human consciousness,and elaborated it as ‘solipsistic dilemma',which means being stuck in subjective consciousness and cannot escape from the edge of ego to the limitless external world.This thesis focuses on close reading.Combined with narratology and subject philosophy,it firstly analyzes the dilemma of self-consciousness Nabokov described in his fiction and elaborates the crises it brings to artistic creation and ethics.Furthermore,it analyzes how Nabokov breaks the ‘solipsistic dilemma' through particular cognition and application of imagination.At last,it explores how Nabokov leads our consciousness goes over fetters and handcuffs of time and space,contacts the vast universe,and moves towards a free world of paradise.This thesis is divided into three parts: Introduction,Main body and Conclusion.Introduction mainly elaborates the significance of this thesis.Firstly,it introduces the reason and significance of selecting this topic.Secondly,it comprehensively comments on the researches in China and aboard.Thirdly,it introduces the researching methods and thoughts.Main body has three chapters.Chapter one focuses on the textual presence of ‘solipsistic dilemma'.It begins with explorations on how artists' consciousness gets stuck in ego and comes out with cognitive chaos.Then,it analyzes the madness caused by this kind of cognition,and elaborates the mistakes in arts and the crimes in ethics of mad artist stuck in ‘solipsistic dilemma'.Chapter two explores how Nabokov breaks ‘solipsistic dilemma' by making use of imagination.At first,it analyzes the work of imagination in Nabokov's comprehension,including the artistic creativity and ethical empathy of imagination.Then,it discusses how solipsists realize self-redemption by using imagination and how real artists use imagination to resist suppressing of solipsism from external world.Chapter three aims at investigating how Nabokov leads our consciousness to a free world of paradise.Above all,it analyzes how artists in Nabokov's writings let consciousness goes through the fetters and handcuffs of time and contacts the vast universe.Then,it dissects how to surpass the world where we are and perceive,approach the higher world of paradise.In the end,by analyzing the layered world in Nabokov's texts,it illustrates the limitation shared by individual consciousness,then goes further to elaborate how Nabokov faces the limitation and carves a path to the world of paradise for artists in texts,by which Nabokov conveys the faith of consciousness will eventually go to freedom.In the Conclusion,it summarizes the whole thesis.I think the ‘solipsistic dilemma' in Nabokov's texts is not only cognitive problems encountered by mad artists,but also reflections of the limitation shared by human consciousness.Faced with limitation of individual consciousness,Nabokov enlightened us to explore the ego and life with the strength of imagination to break through and the freedom as the direction to march forward. |
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