On Narrative Strategies in Despair

Vladimir Nabokov is a world-famous American literary master in the20thCentury. Despair, the sixth work of his, is in controversy among critics and readersworldwide like many of his other works. Of all Nabokov’s works, Despair iscomparatively less reviewed and studied. Many of those who studied this novel puttheir focus on the postmodern characteristics of its formality and Nabokov’s thoughtson artistic creation manifested in this novel, yet few critics have ever attended to theprotagonist Hermann’s feelings and thoughts. This paper purports to make anarratological study of Despair. In doing so, it intends to argue that Hermann, theprotagonist of Despair, is essentially an existentialist.The first chapter is about narrative time in Despair. The narrative time schemefeatures anachronism of time and different narrative durations. Anachronism isachieved by the nonlinearity of time, which is represented by the coexistence of thepast and the present with the application of internal analepsis and prolepsis while thenarrative duration includes scene, narrative pause, summary, and ellipsis. It showsthat for Hermann time functions in his life not as a straight line but an intricatelabyrinth that keeps weaving his experiences into it.The second chapter deals with focalization strategies in Despair. Thefocalization strategy brings readers to the inside of Hermann. There are two featuresof focalization: dual focalizations and three facets of each focalization. The dualfocalization includes both the experiencing Herman’s and the narrating Hermann’sfocalization. Focalization in Despair is systematically constructed frompsychological facet and ideological facet. The psychological facet displaysHermann’s determination to pursue freedom and his consciousness of theconsequences that may be caused in his pursuit of the freedom of choice. Theideological facet presents Hermann’s rebellion against and abandonment of thetraditional establishment and order. The third chapter is about the typology of narrators. This analysis of the narratorHermann is based on narrative level, degree of perceptibility, and reliability.Hermann is an “extra-homodiegetic” narrator who tries to control the narration of thewhole story, yet he finally fails. In addition, Hermann purposely masks himself as areliable narrator who fully believes that his perspectives on everything are real,correct, and authentic, suggesting his side of self-deceiving.In conclusion, narrative strategies enable Hermann or the implied writer tomanifest his existentialist thoughts. Time is nonlinear, and the uncertain world ofregulations of artificial creation is not only meaningless but also impedes men’sfreedom. He determines to break those rules so as to pursue freedom as a humanbeing, while at the same time he is aware of the problem of how to face theconsequences in the pursuit of freedom. Both the narrating Hermann andexperiencing Hermann rebel against social norms and rules. The former shows hisrebel in his writing while the later manifests it through his actions throughout thenovel. All his thoughts and actions are in line with the core thoughts ofExistentialism. It can reasonably come to the conclusion that Hermann or the impliedauthor is an existentialist.