Homosexuality in Pale Fire

            As Ashley wrote in her blog “nothing is accidental” in Nabokov’s Pale Fire.  With this mindset I explored the topic of homosexuality and found the following lines quite interesting…

Yet, if prior to life we had

Been able to imagine life, what mad,

Impossible, unutterable weird,

Wonderful nonsense it might have appeared!

So why join in the vulgar laughter? Why

Scorn a heareafter none can verify:

The Turk’s delight, the future lyres, the talks

With Socrates and Proust in cypress walks,

-Canto Two-Lines 217-224

            Throughout Pale Fire I believe that there is a great significance placed on the references of trees and that the cypress trees referenced in the lines “the future lyres, the talked with Socrates and Proust in cypress walks” may be alluding to the myths of Orpheus and Cyparissus.

                         

In Greek and Roman mythology the cypress tree has an association with the stories of Orpheus and Cyparissus in the Ancient Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  In the tale, Cyparissus is portrayed as a boy who after accidently killing his beloved pet stag with his javelin was turned into a cypress tree to forever mourn for others in their sorrows from his incessant grief. Cyparissus’ unfortunate end is framed within the story of Orpheus.  Orpheus was well known as a legendary poet and musician whom the God Apollo had given a golden lyre as a gift. On one fateful day Orpheus’ wife Eurydice was killed by vipers in an effort to escape from a satyr.  Orpheus immersed with grief then ventured to the underworld to make a deal with Hades to retrieve his wife.  Hades agrees to allow Orpheus to bring back Eurydice under the condition that he must ascend in front of his wife and if he turned is eyes toward her before they reached the light the gift of her delivery would be lost.  Unfortunately Orpheus could not control his anxiety of losing Eurydice again and averted his gaze towards her causing Eurydice died a second time.  In his despair of his loss “Orpheus had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection. Indeed, he was the first of the Thracian people to transfer his love to young boys, and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering, this side of manhood” Orpheus subsequently begins playing his lyre and the cypress of the once Cyparissus sways to Orpheus’ beautiful remorseful music.

            This hidden reference to homosexuality is accompanied by the references to Socrates and Proust; both of whom have had their sexual orientation questioned with Proust being known as one of the first European novelist to mention homosexuality openly in literature. 

            I believe that this reference to homosexuality is another piece of evidence to the web that is interlaced between the poem by John Shade, the commentary of Charles Kinbote, and the story of the former King of Zembla Charles the Beloved.  In the preface, Charles Kinbote is portrayed by a group of drama students at the University as “a pompous women hater with a German accent, constantly quoting Housman and nibbling raw carrots” (25).  There is also attention given to a few of Kinbote’s male lovers throughout the commentary.  Charles the Beloved is also depicted as having a flame with his childhood friend Oleg who were illustrated as "in a manly state and moaning like doves" (127) after locking themselves up in Charles' room and sharing his bed. 

            It is clear through the allusions that are twisted within Pale Fire that Nabokov is playing a mind game of chess with his audience.  However in his game, if the reader does not play by his rules he or she will potentially miss the point of the novel.  Kinbote states that “today, when the "feigned remoteness" has indeed performed its dreadful duty, and the poem we have is the only “shadow” that remains, we cannot help reading into these lines something more than mirrorplay and mirage shimmer” (135).  By climbing the ladder of comprehension the story continues to create a shadow in our minds that manifest countless questions but by following Nabokov’s instructions and “reading into these lines” a greater meaning can be achieved.