Nabokov’s Uncanny:The Transformation of Psychoanalysis in Pale Fire

• Main Authors: WENTING ZOU, 鄒文亭
• Other Authors: PENG YI
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/5326k8

碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 英美語文學系 === 105 === My aim in this thesis is to justify Nabokov’s ambivalence towards Freud by analyzing Nabokov’s transformation of psychoanalysis in one of his classical novel Pale Fire within the concept of “uncanny”. Chapter One analyses Nabokov’s uncanny with regard to three aspects, Nabokov’s unique politics of anger, his literary views and his opinion towards parody expressed in Lectures on Don Quixote. I will give my analysis of Nabokov’s hostility towards Freud and propose that, taking into consideration the consummate strategies used in his novel, the view that Nabokov is anti-Freudian is an over-simplifying proposition. And I think the word ambivalence can shed a more exact light on the bond between Nabokov and Freud. The following two chapters will deal with the two sides of Nabokov’s ambivalence towards Freud. Chapter Two will deal with the second layer of the thesis, that is, how Nabokov returns to his heimlich with Freud by his appropriation of psychoanalysis in Pale Fire. I will talk about three aspects, that is, the Oedipal complex, narcissism and a case of paranoia, and thus complete the discussion on the first side of Nabokov’s ambivalent attitude towards Freud, that is, his affinity and intimacy with Freud. Chapter Three pays attention to the third layer of the thesis,that is, how Nabokov achieves the effect of defamiliarization and creates his own novel, changing the heimlich to unheimlich again by transforming Freud’s psychoanalysis through the modifying colors of his own imagination. From two aspects, that is, narcissistic introspection and “para-noia” reading, I will deal with the other side of Nabokov’s ambivalent attitude towards Freud, that is, his beyond and beside Freud. Finally, I will make the conclusion that Nabokov’s transformation of psychoanalysis is the product of the compromise between his repressed attraction to Freud and open hostility towards him. That is, Nabokov’s uncanny proceeds from his ambivalence towards Freud.