Subject
Sybils Vane - - reply to Jansy (fwd)
From
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Friday, August 13, 2004 11:12 AM -0800
From: Carolyn <chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
To: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Sybils Vane - - reply to Jansy
Dear Jansy,
Has this been discusses before? Indeed it has. Perhaps "discussed"
overstates. I only managed to engage one or two interlocutors regarding
Jekyll & Hyde & Pale Fire, no one commented on my remarks regarding The
Picture of Dorian Gray and Sybil Vane.
In both Dorian & P.F. SV is an actress who commits suicide. In PF the
suicide, it is hinted, is a cover-up for murder, in Dorian SV is a victim
of Dorian's cruelty which leads to her suicide - - another form of murder,
Nabokov seems to hint.
In Pale Fire there are several of these ambiguous murder-suicides. Besides
Sybil Vane, there are (in my reading of the novel) the student "in
ballerina black" who haunts english lit 101, and Hazel. Charlotte Haze in
Lolita is another example, Aqua in Ada. And the Vane sister.
I would guess there are others - - any nominees?
Carolyn
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
Date: Friday, August 13, 2004 11:12 AM -0800
From: Carolyn <chaiselongue@earthlink.net>
To: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Sybils Vane - - reply to Jansy
Dear Jansy,
Has this been discusses before? Indeed it has. Perhaps "discussed"
overstates. I only managed to engage one or two interlocutors regarding
Jekyll & Hyde & Pale Fire, no one commented on my remarks regarding The
Picture of Dorian Gray and Sybil Vane.
In both Dorian & P.F. SV is an actress who commits suicide. In PF the
suicide, it is hinted, is a cover-up for murder, in Dorian SV is a victim
of Dorian's cruelty which leads to her suicide - - another form of murder,
Nabokov seems to hint.
In Pale Fire there are several of these ambiguous murder-suicides. Besides
Sybil Vane, there are (in my reading of the novel) the student "in
ballerina black" who haunts english lit 101, and Hazel. Charlotte Haze in
Lolita is another example, Aqua in Ada. And the Vane sister.
I would guess there are others - - any nominees?
Carolyn
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L