Pnin’s Unforgettable Digressions: Towards a Nabokovian Approach to the Unconscious
Pnin’s Unforgettable Digressions: Towards a Nabokovian Approach to the Unconscious
Author(s): Zihao LiuSubject(s): Fiction, Comparative Study of Literature, Russian Literature, Contemporary Philosophy, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, Psychoanalysis, Phenomenology, American Literature
Published by: Universitatea Petrol-Gaze din Ploieşti
Keywords: Pnin; Vladimir Nabokov; Edmund Husserl; Sigmund Freud; the unconscious; phenomenology;
Summary/Abstract: Defining the unconscious in a Husserlian manner as that which appears through reproductive acts of consciousness, this article attempts to investigate how Vladimir Nabokov tackles this theme in Pnin both as a stylist and as a storyteller. Nabokov understands literature as the art of language that imposes lived experiences on readers, and he achieves literary representations of the unconscious in Pnin by juxtaposing experiences containing tacit expectations that are incongruent with one another. Tracking the scenes where Pnin performs reproductive acts throughout the novel, it is found that the unconscious functions as a thematic pattern in Pnin and mirrors the protagonist’s progress in his quixotic war against cruelty and callousness in the world.
Journal: Word and Text, A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics
- Issue Year: XIII/2023
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 106-118
- Page Count: 12
- Language: English