A Carnivalesque Feast

This thesis is dedicated to the study of Nabokov’s most praised work, Pale Fire, in the light of the polyphony and carnival theory of the Russian theorist, Bakhtin. Sharing the same Russian origin, Nabokov and Bakhtin have a lot in common in their understanding about literature. With the help of Bakhtin’s theories, we can find the hidden meanings in the strange structure and confusing plot of Pale Fire. The aesthetic bliss that Nabokov pursues in art will also be discussed in this thesis.This thesis will be divided into three chapters. Chapter one will study the novel mainly with the polyphony theory, discussing the main voices involved in the novel and the dialogues, the great dialogue in structure and the micro dialogue in content, between different voices. Behind the voices are two very important concepts of Bakhtin, the independence of consciousnesses and the dialogic feature of ideas of human being, which are the main objects for description in polyphonic novels.Chapter two will study the context that makes genuine dialogue possible, the carnival context. There are various carnival elements in the dialogues, characters and plot of the novel. An important carnival element in the literary form and an important element in Nabokov’s novels, parody, will be discussed in detail in this chapter.Chapter three will discuss the theme in the novel and the "aesthetic bliss" that Nabokov pursues in art. This novel includes mainly three themes, the bounty of life, the exploration into the afterlife and the mock to the absurdity in life. The aesthetic bliss will be discussed in two aspects, the sensual pleasure and the intellectual pleasure.Pale Fire has been studied from various aspects, but the studies from Bakhtin’s polyphony and carnival theory are still quite few. This study is mainly based on textual analysis, discussing meaningful voices and dialogues in this experimental novel, hoping that it could be helpful to further studies about Nabokov.