| Vladimir Nabokov(1899-1977), a Russian-born American writer, is not only one of the most gifted exilic writers of the twentieth century but also a pious Gnostic. His double spiritual identities influence his first English novel—The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. This novel reflects Nabokov’s double transitions of his literary career: the identity transition from Sirin Nabokov of Western Europe to Vladimir Nabokov of America and the linguistic transition from Russian to English. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, as his first novel written in English, inherits certain aesthetic motifs of his Russian works such as the artist in exile, the motif of the double and the theme of “the other world.” In addition, the core question on the ambiguous identities of two half-brothers, Sebastian and V., makes this novel become popular in the Western scholarship of Nabokov.This thesis, centering the question on the ambiguous identities of Sebastian and V., in light of theories on the double and certain Gnostic tenets and concepts, intents to reveal that Nabokov’s design of the doubling mapping between Sebastian and V. pertains to his own Gnostic faith: the ambiguous identities between Sebastian and V. are the representation of their spiritual evolution and their merging spirits during their respective quest of “gnosis.”This thesis contains five parts. The first chapter briefly introduces the writer and the novel, and then provides the theoretical explanations on the double and certain Gnostic tenets and concepts. The second chapter, focusing on the doubling relationships circling two half-brothers, conducts a deep analysis about how the doubling design confuses the original identity between different individuals and achieves the continuous flowing of spiritual elements between individuals. Chapter Three, based on the discussion of the antagonistic relationship between the double and “this world,” elucidates how the exiling doubles break the shackles of “this world,” regain their spiritual identities and start the journey of spiritual evolution and self-revelation from bottom to top. Chapter Four intends to analyze how Sebastian and V. undo the chains of the heavy flesh and achieve the fusion of spirits in “the other world” during the process of attaining “gnosis.”The last part, serving as a summary of this thesis, includes the following three points. Firstly, the ambiguous identities of Sebastian and V. result from Nabokov’s design of three pairs of doubling figures circling two heroes. In this delicately intricate painting, Nabokov displays that the design of doubling relationship circling two half-brothers blurs their original identities, which achieves the continuously fluid state of the individual’s spiritual elements. Secondly, the question on the ambiguous identities of Sebastian and V. takes root in Nabokov’s Gnostic faith. The blurring boundary between their identities represents their spiritual merging achieved by their flight from this fettered world to the transcendental other world. Thirdly, in this novel, two heroes’ respective process of literary creation is the metaphorical expression of each other’s whole working process of the spiritual evolution and fusion. During this process, “the other world” is not only the light leading two heroes’ journey in the dark but also the final destination of their self-redemption. In a word, in The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, the construction of the relationship between the doubles and the dualistic worlds in the Gnostic context expresses Nabokov’s eager pursuit of “the other world.”... |
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