On Nabokov’s Narrative Techniques In Despair In Light Of Brandom’s Theory Of Meaning

Vladimir Nabokov is a world-famous American poet, short story writer and novelist in the 20 th Century. His novel Despair has drawn numerous praise for its witty story-telling: two entirely different stories parallel in one book. But until now, Despair is comparatively less reviewed and studied among Nabokov’s works. This paper purports to use Robert Brandom’s Theory of Meaning to analyze the dual-level narration pattern, and to solve Nabokov’s narrative puzzles in Despair.The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter briefly introduces the writer and the novel, and then provides the theory explanation.The second chapter focuses on revealing the unreliable narrator. During the linguistic practice with readers, Hermann, the narrator and protagonist in Despair,breaks the rules of Normative Attitude, and provides the definitions of “art” and“crime” which are in conflict with objective semantic norms. Thus, the linguistic practice cannot run on smoothly.Chapter Three focuses on the formation of the underlying story. In Despair,Hermann’s own statement is one story, while other persons’ reaction to his behaviors is another. The two stories parallel in the text, because there are “referential relations”between claims. Every statement has its commitments and entitlements. So when someone makes a claim, he does not only need to commit this claim itself, but also need to commit the “commitments” to this claim, and stop to commit the “precluded entitlements” to it. Meanwhile, readers are “deontic scorekeepers” in linguistic practice.After the close-reading of Despair, they can find enough evidence to support the latter story instead of the former one. So the latter story would finally be accepted as the“truth” at last.Chapter Four focuses on penetrating the “interrogative text” in Despair.Interrogative texts are illogical descriptions and untruthful narrations in literary works.They are difficult for readers to understand. When reading these texts, readers need to focus on meaning of each sentence as a whole, and to find out the implied information from Hermann’s statements. Meanwhile, by analyzing the purposes of speakers, it can be discovered that the untruthful conversations frequently appear in Despair are actually tactics to achieve Hermann’s hidden goals.Chapter five serves as a summary of this thesis.By using his brilliant narrative techniques, Nabokov presents two stories in Despair.One is the “artistic creation” told by Hermann, the other is the “lunatic and insurance fraud” found by readers. This dual-level narration creates a narrative labyrinth for readers. Robert Brandom’s Theory of Meaning provides readers a route to get out of this labyrinth, and also offers a useful theoretical framework to Literary Pragmatics.