On The Consciousness Of Time In V. Nabokov's Novels

As one of the most important writers in the 20th century, Vladimir Nabokov gets equal parts of praise and condemn. In some critics'perspectives, he is a great and creative novelist, poet and dramatist; but in the perspectives of other critics, he is immoral because of his masterpiece, Lolita. In this thesis, we do think he is a really serious writer. Before 1919, he led a very peaceful and happy life. Based on such a life style, he entered his "pastoral-time". But since 1919, he had been exiling all the time until he died in 1977. These years can be called his "exile-time". This thesis focuses on the characteristics of his conception of time: de-linking. Using the theory of Bakhtin and other theorists, we analyze Nabokov's novels and point out the distinctive features of his texts: carnival implication and interspacial narrative. In my opinion, just because of Nabokov's conception of de-linking time he made his novels unique and became a great writer. This thesis consists of introduction, main body and conclusion. The introduction briefly introduces Nabokov's main works, and then accounts for the present researching situation at home and abroad. His different conception of time is a key to study his fiction. Part one of the main body: The year of 1919 divided his life into two periods, i.e. "pastoral-time"and "exile-time". After generalizing his conception of time, we think its main characteristic is de-linking. And in his fiction, the conception of de-linking time turned out to be the contrast of "metonymy"and "metaphor", and also the opposite elements in "metaphor". Part two: How to balance the inter-world and the outside world in his writing is Nabokov's important aim. In his texts, he tried to make the characters something like clowns, describe the carnival laughter, and emphasize some time and places. Therefore the content of his novels is carnival. By doing so he symbolically solved all his problems and reunited his soul and the outside world. Part three: Besides the content of his fiction, the forms are also concerned with his conception of time. In Lolita, Pale Fire, and Speak, Memory, Nabokov respectively used the skills of intertextuality, unreliable-narrative and juxtaposition to create his distinctive form--interspacial narrative form. In these texts, he deconstructed the linear relationship between cause and effect to make the meanings uncertain and lay stress on readers'reading. Conclusion: The distinctive feature of Nabokov's consciousness of time made his novels quite different from others in his time, his great works also influenced other writers a lot.