Bubble Chart Commentary

Foreward

These bubble charts were constructed by Isabel Milkovich (born October 7, 1989) during the last five days of her semester, at her university in Bozeman, Montana. The chart consists of a one-yard by one-yard square piece of white butcher paper, on each side of which is a separate bubble chart. The charts were originally drawn with graphite #2 pencil, and were then covered over by Rose Art® colored pencils. Unfortunately, the drafts could not be recovered, so we are left instead with merely the final work.

The first bubble chart consists of eighteen circles and thirty-four connecting lines. Within each circle is written a person, place, thing, or color that is related to Pale Fire (see my extensive notes to Pale Fire). The lines connect each of these ideas to what they are connected with through Pale Fire, and create an intricate web. I mean, these things are connected to one another, and the lines show these connections. There is a very loud end-of-semester party right next to my present lodgings.

The second bubble chart consists of two circles and one connecting line. Within each circle are the same eighteen ideas found in the first chart (see reverse side of butcher paper), but this time they are arranged into crosswords, one puzzle in each circle, mirroring each other. This shows that all eighteen ideas are really the same idea, and as such are all interconnected with each other. It also shows that everything is related to its inverse.

We possess in result a complete calendar of her work. Bubble Chart One was begun in the late hours of December 8 and completed on December 10. Bubble Chart Two was begun on the following day, and completed on December 12. This last chart is imperfect in its mirroring. Actually, it turns out to be beautifully accurate when you once make a plunge and compel yourself to open your eyes in the limpid depths under its confused surface. It contains not one gappy line, not one doubtful reading. This fact would be sufficient to show that the imputations made (on December 12, 2011) in an email from one of our professed professors—who affirmed without having graded the charts that they “consist of disjointed drafts none of which yields a definite text”—is a malicious invention on the part of those who would wish not so much to deplore the state in which a great student’s work was interrupted by a due date as to asperse the competence, and perhaps honesty, of its present editor and commentator.

Let me state that without my notes Milkovich’s charts simply have no human reality at all since the human reality of such charts as hers (being too skittish and reticent for an autobiographical work), with the omission of many pithy bubbles and lines carelessly rejected by her, has to depend entirely on the reality of its author and his surroundings, attachments and so forth, a reality that only my notes can provide. To this statement my dear student would probably not have subscribed, but, for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.

            Charles Kinbote

December 16, 2011, Bozeman, Montana

Commentary

Alder Tree

The alder tree seems to be the central theme of the bubble chart, with twelve connections to other things, and yet, it is off in the corner, like scraps for the dog, instead of in the center of the chart (see note to Zembla). With twelve connections, the alder tree is connected with more things than any other bubble on Milkovich’s chart. This does not mean it is central, though, as it is a side note to the story of the Erlking, and Zembla is, of course, in the center of the chart.

The alderwood is the home of the Elf King, and his palace hides somewhere in the forest. Zembla is my own home, and within it are the palace (not hidden) and the last known location of the crown jewels (hidden).

Green

Milkovich connects the color green with both the alder tree and the Elf King. These two connections may be addressed together, since they themselves are so similar to one another (see note to Elf King). One of the dyes extracted from the alder tree is green in color. This particular shade of green is associated with fairy clothing (those not familiar with elfish folklore might recognize the Green Man, the Green Giant, or the Green Knight as examples of people who are associated with the green dye) and therefore, of course, is associated with the Elf King.

I wonder if my friend Milkovich was not thinking at least a little of my colleague Gerald Emerald when she included this in her bubble chart. He really is a most disagreeable man. One might lump him in with the giants (not the Green Giant, of course) rather than a noble Elf King. I am sure Milkovich has not had the unfortunate displeasure of meeting Emerald, though I cannot say for sure.

 King Alfin

I know that Milkovich must be loyal to the Zemblan crown, because of this bubble. Only someone with true sympathy for Zembla in his heart would think to include the great nation’s late king. His connection to the alder tree is an interesting one, I must say, and is not entirely direct. There is an old legend from a distant northern land (similar to my Zembla!) about the daughter of the Elf King, who lived in a forest of alder trees and would lure travelers to her. The story was translated into German as ‘Der Erlkonig Dachter,’ which means ‘The Erlking’s Daughter.’ A German poet then decided to write a poem about the legend, and called it “Der Erlkonig,” or, “The Erlking.” It was later translated into English as “The Elf King.” How the mistranslations do warp our minds! The story went from being about an elf king to an erlking, back to an elf king. Had the German translator gotten the story right, and kept it about an elf king, the poem would have been titled “Der Elfenkonig,” which can mean either ‘The Elf King’ or ‘The King Alfin.’ So, the story that is titled with my dear late king’s name takes place in an alderwood, and Milkovich has made that connection.

This almost humorous reversal of translations reminds me of a letter my Zemblan wife once wrote to me, in which she said, “I want you to know that no matter how much you hurt me, you cannot hurt my love.” What she had attempted to write in English was then translated into Zemblan by a man who was a native speaker of neither Zemblan nor English. When his translation was retranslated back into English, it ended up being, “I desire you and love when you flog me.” How the mistranslations do warp our minds!

I wonder that Milkovich did not think to connect myself with my own former king, since we have a more important relationship than that of mere subject-to-king. At one point I had thought of sharing this secret of mine with my dear Isabel, but I thought better of it at the last minute. After all, I was much closer with John Shade before his death, and I did not even tell him! (Though he did guess it on his own and was kind enough to include bits of my story in his final poem.)

Chess

This has always been a favorite game of mine. I do love the king, with its tall, regal stature. It hasn’t much power to move as it chooses, but such is the life of a king. Funnily enough, the bubble chart does not connect Chess with myself, even though it is a hobby of mine. Milkovich has chosen to connect Chess with the late king of Zembla, Alfin. In doing this, she can only be going back to the origins of chess to find this connection.

Shatranj is an old form of chess that originally came from India. Both this original shatranj and what we know today as chess are games of royalty, so naturally Milkovich would make this connection to a deceased king. The names of the pieces are Persian, with some Arabic influence. What we know today as the bishop was called ‘pil’ (Persian for ‘elephant’). The Arabic word ‘al’ means ‘the,’ and it was sometimes attached as a prefix, with the p changing to f—‘alfil.’ Europeans altered this name slightly to ‘alfin,’ the king’s name. It has always been a bittersweet thing for me that our king’s name really meant ‘the bishop.’ It is right that my country should be led by such a holy, God-fearing man, and yet, it would have been more fitting for the king’s name to mean ‘the king.’ I must constantly remind myself that kings do not live in a world perfectly to their liking.
 

Elf King

The Elf King is that murderous character in “Der Erlkonig” (see note to Der Erlkonig). He promises to take the dying child to his kingdom, where his daughters will spoil him and treat him as royalty. I had such people treat me thus once, but never again shall I be in the company of Fleur de Filer, that young maiden who stayed in my chamber and did as I pleased. The Elf King’s supposed kingdom is in a forest of alder trees. I am not one to take such fairy tales as truth, though this story does hold a literary value of its own. The Elf King’s kingdom might not be real, but the palace in Zembla is, well do I know!

Der Erlkonig

“Der Erlkonig” is a poem written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It tells the story of a father and child riding through the elf-haunted alderwood. The boy becomes sick and begins hallucinating, while the father insists that what his child sees is no more than the surrounding trees and the wind blowing through their boughs. The child eventually dies in the forest of alder trees, despite his father’s assurances that no harm will come to him. My own father never made such promises to me, and a good thing too because my life has been endangered several times in the past and I do not wish to tarnish my late father’s good name.

Zembla

            What a wonderful thing to find my Zembla in the middle of the chart! Everything else surrounds it, and when one turns the entire chart clockwise—as my dear friend Milkovich would have wanted—the other bubbles revolve around it. One might also turn the chart counterclockwise, but not to the same effect. Clockwise motion is always more peaceful to eye, as we say in Zembla. It is connected to the great King Alfin, as it should be, and to myself. We are both Zemblans of our own sorts, he with his games (see note to Chess) and me with my academics.

As a professor from Wordsmith University, I know much about academics. My job description was limited only to Russian literature, but I have quite a bit of experience with American poetry, as well. The Americans might say, “This isn’t my first rodeo,” but I say, “This isn’t my first commentary.” My first commentary was on the heroic poem “Pale Fire,” by my other dear friend John Shade. His wife Sybil never approved our friendship, of course, but in time she grew to like me—I am somewhat of a charming man, if I may modestly say so, though Sybil would never be my type.

Red

Red is the second color of dye derived from the alder tree (see note to Green). In folklore, the red dye from the alder tree was used to paint the faces of the sacred kings. Milkovich also connects the color red with my late friend’s daughter, Hazel, who passed away before I came into the acquaintance of the Shades. Although John and Sybil never told me much about their daughter—and I didn’t press them for details—I did come to the conclusion, after reading “Pale Fire,” that Hazel supposedly saw a red neon sign reflected in a puddle on the night she died. I am not sure why Milkovich felt it important to point out this connection. After all, I made no note of it in my own commentary to “Pale Fire.” I have always thought that some people let themselves get a little too carried away with their imaginations.

Gradus

Oh, how I wish there was no such person! He has haunted me, both by night and by day. When I sleep, I dream of his ever-forward motion toward me; when I am awake, I see his approaching movements at every moment of the day. There is no peace! My dear Milkovich has still not yet made the connection between my self and my desparate position (pun intended). But I must be grateful. Gradus approached me through John Shade’s poem, but he cannot approach me through Isabel Milkovich’s bubble chart, for he has no connection to me their.

Gradus brings about death in his own way (see note to Elder Wand). As he rode through Shade’s “Pale Fire,” he rides through “Der Erlkonig.” He is the Elf King, bringing death to those who enter his domain (namely me, since it is I whom he has sworn to kill). He uses his own form of alder tree to fetch me from this town, this country, this world, as the Elf King uses his alderwood to lure people from their own familiar town, country, world.

And yet, Gradus and I are not so different after all. We both travel along a path (determined by others, of course, for I never meant to leave Zembla, and he follows the command of the Extremists). We both long for the final destination, though neither of us knows when we will reach it. One thing we both know is that death waits at the end of the path—he will kill someone else, and I am sure to be killed when this great charade is over and done for. We are both like the father in “Der Erlkonig;” we travel along a set path, unsure of when we will arrive and whether we will arrive in time, and death inevitably awaits us at our destination.

Hazel Shade

In many ways, Hazel and I are the same person.

John rarely spoke of his daughter Hazel, and I never pressed him for details about her. What little information I have of the young woman’s life and death I gleaned from John’s former secretary, who, after some affairs that were not my fault, wishes to remain anonymous. (Apparently some things were published about her relationship with Hazel that she wishes had not been made public.) Hazel is, in a way, the child in “Der Erlkonig,” who dies at the hands of the Elf King in the alderwood. Although her father tried desperately to protect her, he could not. (See note to Resurrection Stone.)

Child

The father and the child ride through the night and the wind. They ride through the alderwood in the night and the wind. This bit about the alderwood is always left out of translations of “Der Erlkonig” for some poor reason—even translations into Zemblan! But I do not forget that it is through the alderwood that the father carries the child, and that it is the Elf King who takes the child from his father. Separation of father and child is so horrible! (See note to John Shade.)

Elder Wand

The Elder Wand is a magical, fictional object from a children’s story (see note to The Tale of the Three Brothers). According to the story, it is the most powerful wand in the magical world. Death fashions the wand from a nearby elder tree, and thus the connection between the Elder Wand bubble and the Alder Tree bubble.

In the tale, the brother who requests the Elder Wand uses it to kill one of his enemies. This is remarkably similar to how the Elf King uses the alderwood as a place to hide and take humans away to his elfin kingdom. Jakob Gradus is one who would truly benefit from an Elder Wand, although I would hardly like it if he did have one. Gradus had been a constant threat of death up until his recent imprisonment. Now there is another, greater Gradus out there that I must hide from. I must keep reciting my mantra (see note to Cloak of Invisibility) to hide from him and his Elder Wand of death.

Cloak of Invisibility

The Cloak of Invisibility is from the same children’s story that the Elder Wand comes from. A person puts it on to hide from other people, specifically Death. Milkovich included this in her bubble chart because it has strong ties to both the alder tree and myself. The alder tree, in Celtic folklore, is known as a place of hiding. It is said to conceal the doorway into the fairy realm, and many stories in folklore have someone hiding in an alderwood forest (see note to Der Erlkonig). The Cloak, like the alder, is meant to hide a person.

When I was leaving Zembla, I had my own sort of Cloak of Invisibility to keep me safe. My Cloak was my mantra, the first two lines of Der Erlkonig—“Who rides so late in the night and the wind? It is the father with his child.” I repeated these lines as I left Zembla, made my way across Europe, and eventually ended in New Wye. I rode late in the night and wind, seeking safety away from my enemies. I have been fortunate enough so far to come to no harm, although the same cannot be said for my dear old friend John Shade, or his daughter Hazel. Unfortunately, neither of them had any sort of Cloak of Invisibility, and so both died as the two older brothers died, unwillingly going to meet Death before they had lived full lives.

The Tale of the Three Brothers

This children’s story itself has nothing to do with Pale Fire or Der Erlkonig, but some of the things in the story do, so Milkovich felt the need to include a bubble for it. And so I also feel the need to include a note about it. The tale is not known to many academics since it is merely a children’s story (my own childhood was filled with real adventures through secret passages, not stories from books), so I will explain the plot for those who are not familiar with it.

After three brothers build a bridge to cross a river, Death comes to them angry because he was sure he would be able to take three more lives. Nevertheless, he decides to trick the brothers by granting each a gift, and taking their lives later. The oldest brother tries to taunt Death by asking for the most powerful wand in the world. Death makes the wand from the wood of a nearby elder (or alder) tree. This brother then uses the wand to bring death to others. People learn of the wand’s power from the brother’s bragging, and someone kills the brother in his sleep and takes the wand, so Death takes the oldest brother. (See note to Elder Wand.)

The second brother wants to taunt Death even further by asking for the power to bring back people from the dead, so Death picks up a stone and instructs the brother to turn it in his hand and he will be able to bring back whomever he chooses from the dead. He brings back his late fiancé, but she is more a ghost than a real person. He lives in despair with his ghost-like betrothed. He hangs himself, and Death takes the second brother. (See note to Resurrection Stone.)

The third brother is neither arrogant nor believes himself invincible, so he wants to become invisible to Death. Death gives the brother his Cloak of Invisibility, and the third brother evades Death until he is old and ready to die. He takes off the cloak at the end of his long life, and gladly enters into the company of Death. (See note to Cloak of Invisibility.)

Resurrection Stone

The Resurrection Stone is yet another mystical, Magical object Milkovich chose to include in her Bubble Chart. Had I known she was going to put such nonsense into a great piece of work, I would have deterred her from it as once! As such, the past cannot be changed (as I well know!), so I must explain why my dear friend placed such a thing in her chart.

This really is a tip of the hat to John Shade, even if it is in a morbid way. The Resurrection Stone, with its capabilities of bringing back the dead, would have appealed greatly to Shade, had he had such an inexplicable interest in children’s stories. Ever since his daughter Hazel died, he was overcome by grief and guilt at not being able to save his only child. His possession of a Resurrection Stone would have rectified his own inability to protect his daughter.

Since Shade did not have a Resurrection Stone at his disposable (impossible as they are to acquire), he used his poem “Pale Fire” to bring Hazel back to life. In the same way that Gradus comes to life through the poem, in a way Hazel comes back to life because Shade writes quite a bit about her and brings her back to life as a character. Yet this second life through the poem was not quite enough for my dear friend John, and I do suspect at times that he died in despair as the second brother in the tale died.

Just as Shade tried and failed to bring Hazel back to life, the father in “Der Erlkonig” tried and failed to rescue his son from certain death. He was not able to deliver his son to his house in time to save him, just as Shade was not able to protect his daughter.

John Shade

I have regaled Milkovich many times of my close friendship with the poet John Shade. Although I met him only months before his untimely death, it was one of those rare friendships that form overnight and are closer than the friendships formed between people over the course of many years.

Shade, of course, is the father spoken of in “Der Erlkonig.”  He makes a valiant attempt to resurrect, if not save, his Hazel from death (see note to Resurrection Stone). What Milkovich does not include in her Bubble Chart is John’s connection to Hazel. They are closely related, after all—father and child. Perhaps my friend wishes, in her own way, to relate John’s child with King Alfin’s child. Neither set of father and child is connected on the chart, though both are clear as the air. Alas, the father’s loss of his child (or the child’s loss of his father, for that matter) is not something that is openly spoken of; people tend to avoid the subject altogether if they are able to, for it is a devastating loss.

Father

I am my own father who rides so late in the night and the wind. I do my best to save my own self from harm and death, by reciting my mantra. Who rides so late in the night and wind? It is the father with his child. I am my own father. I deliver myself to safety by hiding from the great and many Graduses in the world who wish me dead. For now, I am safe from the Elf King, but unfortunately the future is not yet revealed to me.

Final Bubble Chart

On Thursday night I decided to change my paper to a bubble diagram of all the connections found in Pale Fire and The Erlking (first picture). I made several rough drafts of the diagram, each time having to completely redo it after finding more and more connections. Eventually I realized that everything is connected, and that there should be a line connecting every single bubble to every single other bubble, so I created a second level to the chart (second picture). I connected all the words in a crossword (word puzzle) and connected it to a mirror-image of itself on the other half of the poster. It is not an exact mirror reflection (imperfection is key): the words are written backwards but the letters are not, a la Hazel Shade. These letters are also written in red and green, two colors important to Pale Fire and The Erlking. The connecting lines in both bubble charts are the color of fire, while the bubbles themselves are the color of charcoal, an important symbol for the alder tree. Around the corners of each chart are the words 'Pale Fire' written in silver, the color the moon steals from the sun.

The Tale of the Three Brothers

I wrote in a previous blog about two children's stories - The Napping House and Bears In the Night - and how they are similar to memory palaces (and therefore are connected to Pale Fire). I recently reread a third children's story, Beedle the Bard's The Tale of the Three Brothers, and found remarkable connections with Pale Fire's own connection with The Erlking.

The most basic and obvious similarity between Pale Fire, The Erlking, and The Tale of the Three Brothers is that we once again have someone trying to escape death. After escaping death, the oldest brother tries to taunt Death by asking for the most powerful wand in the world. Death makes the wand from the wood of a nearby elder (or alder) tree. This brother then uses the wand to bring death to others, in much the same way that the Alder King brings death to the child in the alder wood. Shade mentions The Erlking in his poem in the first place because he sees himself as the father and Hazel as the child. Hazel, the child, and the oldest brother all die.

The second brother wants to taunt Death even further by asking for the power to bring back people from the dead, so Death picks up a stone and instructs the brother to turn it in his hand and he will be able to bring back whomever he chooses from the dead. He brings back his late fiance, but she is more a ghost than a real person. This ghost figure is similar to the ghost in the barn that Hazel wants to see. In the same way that Gradus comes to life through the poem, in a way Hazel comes back to life because Shade writes quite a bit about her and brings her back to life as a character. The second brother also dies because he lives in despair with his ghost-like betrothed.

The third brother is neither arrogant nor believes himself invincible, so he wants to become invisible to Death. Death gives the brother his Cloak of Invisibility, and the third brother evades death until he is old and ready to die. The brother was able to avoid an untimely death by hiding, just as Kinbote tries to do by leaving Zembla, then eventually going into hiding in Utana. Both Hazel and John Shade do not live their lives in hiding, so both die of unnatural causes.

While escaping from Zembla, Kinbote continuously recites the first two lines from The Erlking: Who rides to late in the night and the wind?/It is the father with his child. Kinbote uses this mantra as his own Cloak of Invisibility to hide from the political extremists, Gradus in particular. Kinbote sees himself as riding through the night to escape death, and carries himself to safety as the father is trying to carry his child to safety.

Alder Tree and Celtic folklore

The alder tree is important to Celtic folklore as a place of hiding and secrecy. In the story of Deirdre of the Sorrows, Deirdre elopes with Naoise, son of Usna, and they hide together from King Conchobar mac Nessa, Deirdre's betrothed, in the alder woods of Glen Etibhe. They eventually leave the forest, and are then discovered by one of King Conchobar's spies. Naoise throws a golden chess piece at the spy and puts out one of his eyes, but he is still able to report to the king where the lovers are. (As in all good tragedies, both lovers die and everyone else lives.) This story relates to Kinbote's own escape and hiding, except Kinbote is the king that is hiding from Gradus, the person of lower status, rather than the lower Naoise hiding from King Conchobar.

The alder tree is considered a place of hiding in Celtic folklore primarily because it is believed that the trunk of the alder tree conceals doorways into the fairy realm. Alice goes through the looking glass, the crazy Kinbote immerses himself in Shade's poem while in Utana, and the father and his child ride "through the night, dark and drear." It is in the alderwood that the child is transported from life into the dark oblivion afterward, and it is the Alder King who transports the boy to his fairy kingdom with his fairy wife and fairy daughters.

Presentations Day 1

Madeleine: I like the connection you made between Prospero and Kinbote. I'd like to see more of a connection between Kinbote's relationships with the other characters and Prospero's relationships with the other characters.

Michael: I like your idea of the window chess board, and Nabokov on one side and us on the other. I think it would be interesting to consider Kinbote on one side of the glass and Shade on the other. Shade knows the details of his own life and the poem, as well as the details of Kinbote's life that he has chosen to share with Shade. Kinbote, on the other hand, knows only his own life and pretends to understand Shade when really he doesn't.

Breanna: I still can't get the image of the reversing spiral out of my head. It sounds like your paper focuses primarily on other things, but I think there could potentially be a lot to this image - the circular pattern, the reversal, every point on the spiral leading both to and away from the center (including the center itself).

Sarah: When I read your abstract I told you it would be too much, but now I have to eat my words. Nice work fitting everything in!

Alder Tree and colors

Research into the alder tree (in the original story of the elverkonge datter, the Elf King and his daughter lived in a forest of alder trees) has led me to some startling realizations of the connection between the alder tree and Pale Fire.

The dyes extracted from the alder tree are green and red in color. The greed dye is associated with fairy clothing (most notably the Green Man, the Green Giant, the Green Knight, etc) and therefore, of course, it is associated with the Elf King. It is also seen in Pale Fire in a few places. Iris Aucht's painting is in the green room of a theater, and one of the professors at Wordsmith is Gerald Emerald. In folklore, the red dye from the alder tree was used to paint the paces of the sacred kings, of which the Elf King would certainly be included. Red is found in line 398 of Shade's poem when he writes about Hazel's death. She sees the neon-barred puddles in the street after her date leaves her but before she dies.

The alder tree itself has several references to the words 'pale fire.' When freshly cut, the wood is a very pale color, then turns red (like fire) after time. The wood is not good for large flame, but it is the best wood to use for charcoal, and the embers are like a pale fire. In the Celtic lunar year, alder is the third tree of the calendar, and coincides with the Fire Moon. (And Fire Moon is just Pale Fire backwards, like redips and redwop.) This is why the alder tree was considered by the Celts as a tree of fire, even though it is not used to produce flame. Since the moon steals its pale fire from the sun, the alder is an appropriate tree for Pale Fire.

Most of my information about alder trees comes from this site:

http://www.druidry.org/obod/trees/alder.html

Kinbote's Mistranslation of The Erlking

Kinbote praises Shade for his translation of Der Erlkonig, saying in his commentary, "One cannot sufficiently admire the ingenious way in which Shade manages to transfer something of the broken rhythm of the ballade (a trisyllabic meter at heart) into his iambic verse: Who rides so late in the night and the wind... It is the father with his child." What Kinbote fails to realize is that this is a literal translation of the poem. Shade does not come up with the wording that fits his poem perfectly. This is a literal translation of the original German words. Rather than changing Goethe's poem to fit Pale Fire, Shade writes his poem Pale Fire to fit in around this literal translation.

Abstract

In my final paper I will discuss Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s poem “The Erlking” as it relates to Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire (particularly in regard to Hazel). I will incorporate the many mistranslations of the title of the poem and Kinbote’s misinterpretations of the substance of the poem. I will discuss the erlking’s role as a scavenger in the woods on a scavenger hunt for humans and compare this to the reader’s role in a similar scavenger hunt through the commentary of Pale Fire.

I will show Gradus’ connection to “The Erlking.” I will delve into his representation of and similarities to the erlking as death and how Gradus has several inhuman qualities—his physical description, his journey through the prose, and his invisibility to all except Kinbote. I will also discuss his connection to the father in Goethe’s poem. Gradus, like the father, is on a journey and is hurried on that journey by death. Kinbote, as the son, is the only one who can see the killer approaching.

I will discuss the importance of the alder tree to both Goethe’s poem and Nabokov’s novel—its mythological connections and its contribution to the characters and novel as a whole. The bark and leaves of the alder tree can be used to make red and greed dyes, so I incorporate the use of these two colors throughout the novel. I will also discuss the use of trees in general as they appear throughout the commentary (“and ‘tree’ in Zemblan is grados”).

To tie everything together, I will discuss Hazel’s connection with “The Erlking.” Her death is as mysterious to her parents as the son’s death is to his father. She is the lost child; she is the erlking’s daughter; she is the tree.

The Erlking

THE ERLKING, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.

"My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?"
"Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!
Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?"
"My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain."

"Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!
Full many a game I will play there with thee;
On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,
My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?"
"Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;
'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves."

"Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?
My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care
My daughters by night their glad festival keep,
They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not see,
How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me?"
"My darling, my darling, I see it aright,
'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight."

"I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy!
And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."
"My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
Full sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last."

The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;
He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread,--
The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

Looking at the poem itself, we also find many connections to Pale Fire. First and foremost, there is the death of a child. The father loses his son just as Shade loses his daughter. Shade alludes to 'The Erlking' just before talking about his grief (lines 653-667). In both 'The Erlking' and Pale Fire there is a person who sees things that aren't apparent to anyone else, though in the end what he sees actually is there. In Goethe's poem the son sees the erlking, but his father insists on it simply being the boy's imagination, and he gives a natural explanation for everything the boy claims to sense. It turns out that both son and father are neither entirely correct nor entirely incorrect. There is something that the son feels, hears, and sees, but it is not a person as the boy thinks it is. Likewise, the father insists that there is no person "with crown and with train" whispering in his son's ear, though it is not the wind and mist as he says it is. There is something that is there that is not human, and while it is not the wind and mist, it is, in a way nature. It is Death. The boy sees it, while his father cannot. In Pale Fire, Kinbote sees Jakob Gradus coming closer, approaching along the lines of Shade's poem (see Index entry 'Gradus, Jakob' for extensive list of notes on this, the most notable of which are the notes to lines 17 & 29, 209, 741, and 949), though no one else can see this. In a way Gradus is death itself. He represents death in Kinbote's mind, and brings about the death of not only Shade but of several other people he killed in the attempt to assassinate Charles the Beloved. Kinbote, like the boy in Goethe's poem, is the only one who can see Death coming.

Gradus is also akin to the father in 'The Erlking.' Both are on a journey throughout the entirety of the text. Gradus is on a journey from some mystical place (Zembla) to New Wye to assassinate Charles the Beloved, while the father is on his way home from some unnamed place. Death spurs them both on, but for two very different reasons. Gradus is going to New Wye to take the life of someone, while the father is going home in the hopes of preserving the life of his son. In each case, Death wins.


Gradus can be seen as both the erlking (Death) and the father in Goethe's poem. Each scenario has its own flaw - the erlking is neither human (as the son sees him) nor nature (as the father sees him), and, unlike the father, Gradus seeks to kill rather than to save - but that is the spirit of mistranslation. In this series of mistranslations of 'The Erlking,' Nabokov has found his place among them with Pale Fire. It is his own written translation of events in the tale of Den Elverkongen Datter.

An Addendum to Mistranslations of 'The Erlking'

The lines from Goethe's poem that Shade includes in his own come from a literal translation of the original German words. In the seventh stanza of the poem, the boy's fear of the erlking makes him unwilling (or unable, this is ambiguous) to continue on the journey home. The father gets frustrated at what he thinks is simply his son's overgrown imagination and exclaims that he will use force to make his son come home. The literal translation reads:

"I love you, your beautiful form entices me;

And if you're not willing, then I will use force."

This wording implies something that is so far off from the rest of the poem that it is almost laughable. Nothing else in the poem hints at rape, abuse, or any other maltreatment of any kind. A mistranslation very similar to this appears in Kinbote's note to lines 433-434. Disa writes a letter - in English - to Charles the Beloved stating, among other things, "I want you to know that no matter how much you hurt me, you cannot hurt my love." Between her translation to English, the translation of that into Zemblan by a Hindu member of the Extremist party, and a retranslation back into English for the reader, this sentence somehow turns into: "I desire you and love when you flog me." Again, this wording implies something that is so far off from the rest of the story that it is almost laughable. Thus, we see again the reflection of 'The Erlking' in Pale Fire. 

Mistranslations in 'The Erlking'

The legend of 'The Erlking' (according to Wikipedia):
Goethe's poem is based on "Erlkonig's Tochter" ("The Elf King's Daughter" in English), a German translation (by Johann Gottfried Herder) of a Danish poem which is based on a Scandinavian tale (remember that while Denmark is the southernmost part of the region, Scandinavia in general is so far north that it reaches well above the Arctic Circle). In the original tale, the antagonist is the Erlking's daughter; she sent out female elves to lure and capture humans to "satisfy her desire, jealousy, and lust for revenge."


Mistranslations of 'The Erlking" (according to Wikipedia):
The original Danish word 'elverkonge' literally means 'king of the elves.' The title of the original Danish poem was mistranslated into German as 'erlkonig,' which means 'Alder king.' (The appropriate translation would have been 'elfenkonig,' which bears a striking reZemblance to King Alfin.) Goethe kept the word 'erlkonig' for his poem, but when that was translated into English, the title was mistranslated again as 'Erlking,' or 'Elf King.' So the title came full circle from being "Daughter of the King of the Elves" to "Alder King" back to "Elf King." (Note for later that the word 'daughter' was dropped off.)


Already we see countless mistranslations throughout the history of this poem, and also its connection with the far north. We also find the name of one of the characters (Kinbote's father Alfin) in what would have been the title of Goethe's poem had Herder translated accurately. Because of this mistranslation, however, we pick up the term 'alder king' along the way.

Pale Fire and Orson Scott Card

As I said in class the other day, there are several things from Pale Fire that show up in various places in Card's writing. Nothing from this novel is central in anything Card writes, but the things he does take are all important in Pale Fire.

The subterranean tunnels that Kinbote and Oleg crawl through appear in Card's short story "Dust," where a boy follows a strange girl through a subterranean tunnel to reach a fantasy land. Kinbote imagines that he and Oleg crawled through tunnels as children, and their childish imaginations created a land of fantasy within the tunnels. Conversely, at the end of "Dust" the boy grows up and begins to believe that his adventure through the tunnel was merely his imagination.

The alphabet scanning in the barn with Hazel is seen in Card's novel Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in his Ender saga. One of the characters becomes paralyzed and uses alphabet scanning to communicate with his family.

Kinbote and Shade live in New Wye, Appalachia. Appalachia is also the name of a state in Card's fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker. The series follows Alvin around a United States that is slightly altered - politically, culturally, and linguistically - from the country we live in today. Kinbote also entertains the existence of a world that is slightly different than the one we know (a world which includes Zembla, Appalachia, and Utana on the map).

Card's Homecoming Saga reflects Pale Fire in several ways. After destroying Earth, humans had to relocate to the planet Harmony until an AI computer program deems them worthy of returning to their home planet. Finally, 40 million years later (when the story begins), a select group of humans is finally ready to return to Earth. In the first book in the series, The Memory of Earth, the humans must learn from the computer program's memory of Earth how to make the appropriate starships to return them home. The use of the word memory has obvious connections with our class. The memory chip itself is structured like a memory palace, and Card describes it as having many compartments or rooms in a house where different bits of information are stored.
Also in the saga, the problem of repopulating Earth comes up, so everyone in this rag-tag group of humans has to marry within the group. One of the couples consists of an apparently romantically devoid biologist and a closet homosexual historian. They put off getting married - she because she doesn't believe in love, and he because he is not interested in her - but then realize that they must marry and have children for the betterment of their small community. They eventually marry out of duty, and after the historian finally confesses his homosexuality to her, the scientist begins to fall in love and remains in love with him even though she knows he will never love her back. We see this in Pale Fire with Kinbote's marriage to Disa. They marry out of political duty and attempt to have a son to pass the crown down to (for the betterment of their small country). Disa loves Kinbote and will always love him even though she knows it will never be reciprocated.
The third parallel between the Homecoming saga and Pale Fire lies in the Index. Literally. The piece of hardware that is the computer program's memory chip is called the Index. It holds the answers to everything the original, Earth-born humans thought the future humans would need to know, just as the Index of Pale Fire contains everything Kinbote thinks the reader needs to know.

Scavenger Hunt

As Gradus walks through the index cards and lines of Shade's poem, he is on a scavenger hunt, jumping around Europe and finally the States looking for Kinbote. In the same way, we, the readers, are jumping around the commentary from page to page looking for order in this cacophony of notes. We are trying to find the crown jewels, we are trying to find out who Charles Kinbote really is, we are trying to find the real reason why Gradus is on a murder mission. If Gradus is a figment of Kinbote's imagination, then are we not a figment of Nabokov's imagination? Now take into account that imagination is more real than "reality." So I'd say yes, we are a figment of Nabokov's imagination, just as important to his novel as Shade and Kinbote and Gradus, for without us his novel is nothing. It takes a competent reader to read this book the way it should be read - as a literary scavenger hunt.

Paper Topic

My paper topic will be gradual Gradus (see note to lines 17, 29). I will look at the literal (albeit imagined) path he takes from Zembla to New Wye. I will also look at the transformative path that he takes through Kinbote's mind, from being merely a picture in an album in Goldsworth's house to being a faulty agent in a faulty scheme to assassinate the former king of Zembla.

The Memory Palace and children's books

Our brief discussion on Tuesday about memory palaces brought to mind two of my favorite childhood books that combine spacial associations and repetition. The Napping House, by Audrey Wood, is about people and animals napping on a bed. Bears in the Night, by Stan and Jan Berenstain, is about seven bear siblings that sneak out of the house at night and go on an adventure.

The Napping House begins with a grandmother sleeping on a bed. A boy climbs on top of her to sleep, then a dog, cat, mouse, and finally a flea. Each person or animal becomes gradually smaller until the barely visible flea flies on top and wakes everyone up. Each page tells what is already on the bed, in addition to what just climbed on top. For each new napping thing on the bed, there is a specific adjective that accompanies it and reappears on each page with it. This and the fact that each thing gets smaller and smaller as they get higher and higher on the bed helps children to remember what comes next.

Bears in the Night remains to this day my favorite childhood story because I first learned to read from it. The bears sneak out their window at night, climb down the side of the house, go across the lawn and over the bridge, through the woods and up a hill, until they get scared by an owl in a nearby tree and retrace their path back into bed. Each page consists of what has previously been said about their path, in addition to their next movement. This was my favorite book as a child, and my parents read it to me so much that I eventually memorized it. I then began to associate the words that were said with what was written on the page, and thus began to read. What made this book so easy to memorize was the pictures that describes the ad-on on each page. I have even clearer memories of the vines on the side of the house, the brick bridge with the stream underneath, and the bug-eyed owl in the tree than I have of the exact words. Remembering the path that the bears took - where they were going - helped me to memorize the simple statements that were made about that path.

The use of spacial awareness in both these books acts as a sort of memory palace within each story. Remembering a path one takes or where one is sandwiched between other things helps us to remember the order that things occur.

Discoveries

Shatranj is an old form of chess that originally came from India. The games (both the modernized, western version and the original) are games of royalty; since Kinbote is royalty, it makes sense that he would identify with this game. The original shatranj utilized the same pieces and was played on a board of the same size (8X8). The names of the pieces are Persian, with some Arabic influence. What we know today as the bishop was called 'pil' (Persian for 'elephant'). The Arabic word for 'the' is 'al,' and was sometimes attached as a prefix, with the p changing to f - 'alfil.' When shatranj was first introduced to the western world, Europeans altered the name slightly to 'alfin,' which happens to be the name of Kinbote's father and the former king of Zembla. It makes sense that in Kinbote's narcissistic imagination, he has his father be not the king or even the queen in his royal game of chess, but the bishop - a person of power and importance, but not the biggest fish in the sea. Kinbote, in his narcissism, saves that position for himself in his fantasy world.

The name Mandevil keeps popping up as some mysterious noble family from Zembla. We are introduced to Baron Mandevil when the King is fleeing his country and sees what appears to be an old woman knitting on the beach. Odon informs the King that it is actually "Baron Mandevil--chap who had that duel last year" (147). Apparently in this duel the Baron was disfigured and now resembles an old woman. Kinbote mentions the name 3 pages later when trying to describe Gradus' appearance. He says that Gradus' "grotesque figure... was not much odder than... a mad Mandevil who had lost a leg in trying to make anti-matter." Again, the Mandevil being described is deformed. There is also a Mandevil Forest that is mentioned on page 139 when Kinbote and his friends go for a drive. When they reach the edge of Mandevil Forest, "thunder rumble[s] in the terrible brown sky." I didn't think much about the odd name (which is probably pronounced with a stressed first syllable, but I can't help pronouncing it 'Man-devil') until I read Kinbote's opinion of demons on page 226. He tells Shade, "goetic magic does not always work. The demons in their prismatic malice betray the agreement between us and them, and we are again in the chaos of chance." (According to Wikipedia, Goetia "refers to a practice which includes the invocation of angels or the evocation of demons.") In other words, a human denies God and calls upon a demon to serve him so that he can control what goes on around him, but the demon is a colorful character and does not keep his word, so the human has no control and his destiny is left to chance - which, as Kinbote states on the previous page, is dreadful because Chance denies the existence of God. This passage reminded me of the Mandevil family and the Mandevil Forest, so I went back and looked at the passages where the name occurs. On pages 147 and 150, the men with the last name of Mandevil are both mishapen - they look like something that they are not. Demons are known to take the form of something other than a demon when called upon by a human (as in goetic magic). On page 139, thunder rumbles when Mandevil Forest is mentioned. In literature, the sound of thunder is often used to show that God is angry with humans. Using goetic magic - which itself denies God and also necessarily ends in the "chaos of chance" (which is another, more roundabout way of denying God) - would certainly anger God and result in rumbling thunder. So perhaps it is more than coincidence that the name Mandevil is spelled "Man-devil." Maybe the Mandevil family is comprised of demons.

At the bottom of page 83, Kinbote is looking at the "morocco-bound album in which the judge had lovingly pasted the life histories and pictures of people he had sent to prison..." The Morocco binding is a special kind of binding and covering for books that is made of leather and known for its high cost, aesthetic appeal, and durability. On the cover of the book is what appears to be a picture of a match with a leather frame. I take liberties in calling the 'picture' Moroccan-bound. I did spend some time closely examining (both figuratively and literally) this black border, and realized that the "picture" is in fact a mirror (the edges of it where it touches the leather was my clue). Moving beyond what we've already discussed in class about mirrors in the book, I discovered that the idea of the mirror reflecting a match and words rather than my own face is similar to the mirror in Velasquez's painting, which reflects something that is not seen by the viewer. I also noticed that, because of the angles of the shadows of the leather border onto the grey page and the leather border onto the purple reflection, the mirror must be inlaid from the leather. The light is coming from some source not seen on the cover - just as the light source in Velasquez's painting is unseen to the viewer - just off the top left corner.

*Several hours after the discovery of the mirror on the cover, I went back to looking at the match itself. With the title Pale Fire, one might think that a match on the cover would be lit (perhaps with a small flame), producing a pale fire. Smoke, while pale, is after all not actually fire. I did decide, however, that the color of the smoke from the match is similar to the color of the moon. There are plenty of references throughout the novel to the moon, its luminescence, and its reflection of the sun. On page 105, Fifalda and Fleur wear earrings that "catch and lose the fire of the sun," just as the moon catches and loses the fire of the sun every night. On page 108, Kinbote further describes Fleur as having a "pale face" with "luminous eyes and... dark hair." The pale face and luminous eyes surrounded by dark hair are like the moon surrounded by the dark night. On page 111, Kinbote talks of waking in the night and, in an attempt to get her to put clothes on, would pour water "onto Fleur's naked shoulder so as to extinguish upon it the weak gleam of a moonbeam." The word "extinguish" obviously relates to the cover of the book - the flame of the match has been extinguished so it emits smoke rather than fire. The phrase "the weak gleam of a moonbeam" is yet another reference to the moon's reflection of the sun. These three quotes all have to do with Fleur, but I keep finding more and more as I read. The repetition of the moon and references to it all draw attention to the fact that the moon is a reflection of the light from the sun - or rather, the moon is the smoke of the fire that is the sun. The moon relates to the smoke that is on the cover of the book, which is a reflection in a mirror. So maybe the actual, physical match that we cannot see is alight with flame, and its reflection is merely the "pale light" (227) that we see as smoke.

Gradus and the poem

"We shall accompany Gradus in constant thought, as he makes his way from distant dim Zembla to green Appalachia, through the entire length of the poem, following the road of its rhythm, riding past in a rhyme, skidding around the corner of a run-on, breathing with the caesura, swinging down to the foot of the page from line to line as from branch to branch, hiding between two words, reappearing on the horizon of a new canto, steadily marching nearer in iambic motion, crossing streets, moving up with his valise on the escalator of the pentameter, stepping off, boarding a new train of thought, entering the hall of a hotel, putting out the bedlight, while Shade blots out a word, and falling asleep as the poet lays down his pen for the night" (78)

It was said on Tuesday (I think by Morgan) that Shade might not exist--that he simply isn't. This passage leads me to believe that Gradus doesn't exist. He is seen as the personification of the poem, almost as if he is inside the poem, running through the pages and hanging out in the different stanzas. It could possibly be that Gradus is just a deeper layer of the poem. Perhaps the commentator won't meet him until he gets to the ninth rung of the ladder. Shade coincidentally finished the poem on the very day that he died, but maybe it isn't a coincidence at all. Maybe, in the act of finishing the poem, Shade felt that his life was finished as well--that his life was the poem. By finishing the poem, Gradus, this deepest layer, sprang from the poem in some mystical, sci-fi/fantasy way, shot Shade, and jumped back into the pages. Or, maybe after having completed the poem Shade decided that his life was over and that he should shoot himself and push the blame onto Gradus, that deepest layer of his poem.

Five Facts

1. Nabokov was very smart

2. Nabokov was a writer

3. Nabokov was a scientist

4. Nabokov was a United States immigrant

5. Nabokov was bilingual

Representations quotes

Forgot to say -
Quotations are from A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis, pages 19-20 and 21-22

Representations

“Today I had to meet a man I haven’t see for ten years. And all that time I had thought I was remembering him well—how he looked and spoke and the sort of things he said. The first five minutes of the real man shattered the image completely. Not that he had changed. On the contrary. I kept on thinking, ‘Yes, of course, of course. I’d forgotten that he thought that—or disliked this, or knew so-and-so—or jerked his head back that way.’ I had known all these things once and I recognized them the moment I met them again. But they had all faded out of my mental picture of him, and when they were all replaced by his actual presence the total effect was quite astonishingly different from the image I had carried about with me for those ten years...

“I remember being rather horrified one summer morning long ago when a burly, cheerful labouring man, carrying a hoe and a watering pot came into our churchyard and, as he pulled the gate behind him, shouted over his shoulder to two friends, ‘See you later, I’m just going to visit Mum.’ He meant he was going to weed and water and generally tidy up her grave…. A six-by-three-foot flower-bed had become Mum. That was his symbol for her, his link with her. Caring for it was visiting her. May this not be in one way better than preserving and caressing an image in one’s own memory? The grave and the image are equally links with the irrecoverable and symbols for the unimaginable. But the image has the added disadvantage that it will do whatever you want. It will smile or frown, be tender, gay, ribald, or argumentative just as your mood demands. It is a puppet of which you hold the strings…. The fatal obedience of the image, its insipid dependence on me, is bound to increase. The flower-bed on the other hand is an obstinate, resistant, often intractable bit of reality, just as Mum in her lifetime doubtless was.”

Our mental images of scenes and of people changes over time. We typically forget that a person is such a way, or we simply might be projecting our own qualities or the qualities of others that we know onto a person we haven’t seen in years. In the two versions of Las Meninas that Dusty gave us in class, we have two depictions of an image that Velasquez held in his mind. The painting by Velasquez is a representation of that image that he thought of; Picasso’s painting is a representation of that representation.

The image that Velasquez saw in his mind might have changed over time, and might have changed even while he was creating the painting. Likewise, the image that Picasso saw in his mind of a rendition of Velasquez’s image may have changed over time as well. However, once each of the paintings was completed, the dynamic of the image held in the respective artists’ minds ceased to matter. (One could even argue that the dynamic ceased to exist altogether). The images as we see them today are static and unchanging, much like a six-by-three-foot flower-bed.

The change that happens to the paintings occurs within our own minds. More specifically, it occurs in the memory. With the exception of people with eidetic memory, we the viewers cannot remember perfectly what each painting looks like down to the last hair on the princess’s head. If we go a few years without looking at either painting, we might forget some small and even some large details—yes, the painter is the same height as the canvas in Picasso’s painting but not in Velasquez’s; the boy in the bottom-right corner is in fact stepping on the dog; the hooks on the ceiling are almost impossible to see in Velasquez’s painting. These details will slip from our memories over time, and we will be left with a general idea of the paintings but unable to recall the exact image.

The Concept and the Idea of Order

Dusty discussed Saussure’s idea that all signifiers are part of the same order, and all signifieds are part of the same order, but the pairing of signifier and signified is completely accidental. This brings to mind “The Idea of Order at Key West”, and that “The water never formed to mind or voice.” It seems the water is neither a signified—mind—nor a signifier—voice. The speaker is so enthralled with the woman that, although he acknowledges the sea, he does not bother to attach meaning to it or to give much more thought to it other than the fact that it is in all ways inferior to the woman. The sea is “merely a place by which she walked to sing,” and therefore it is not an entity itself—it is more like the scenery than a subject or even an object.

Damned If You Do

I found Morgan's summary the other day of Volcano Cowboys and the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation that they were in to be very interesting. It reminds me of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. The main character, Valjean, skips parole and turns a new leaf. He moves to a new town and becomes an honest, God fearing, successful business man and the mayor of the town. Many years later, Javert, and ambitious policeman, moves to the town. Althought Javert was a guard at the prison Valjean was in, he does not recognize the mayor, but instead identifies another as the man who broke parole and is therefore sentenced to life in prison.

Valjean is placed in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't predicament. If he stays silent and doesn't correct Javert's mistake, then an innocent man will go to prison in his place. However, if he does identify himself, he will go to prison. If he does go to prison, the factory he owns will be shut down, and all of his employees (a significant majority of the population) will be out of work. The town's economy is already struggling, and if the factory shuts down the entire town will shut down, too.

The unabridged novel has a wonderful, several-page passage with Valjean pacing in a hallway in the courthouse, debating in his mind what he should do. Most abridged versions unfortunately cut this scene down to a paragraph, or one page at most, and they cut out most of the intriguing ethical and moral questions that Valjean is faced with. The musical, however, summarizes the problem adequately in one song, and Valjean comes to the conclusion, "If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned."

Dr. Stockmann is in the same position as Valjean. If he speaks out about the water, he is condemned, but if he keeps quiet about it he is damned. However, Stockmann and Valjean have two different motives and handle their respective situations in two very different ways. While Valjean's motivation to speak is God and righteousness, Stockmann's motivation is his own conceit. Stockmann wants the people to know that he is the one who saves the town, and he wants the community to listen to what he has to say, not to what he has to say. When he is completely turned out by the town, he stays in his house to spite the community. Valjean, on the other hand, leaves the town and moves to Paris, where he can once again live under an alias and help the lowest class there. He determines to do good for his community, wherever that may be, rather than spite the people who shun him.

The Unsophisticated as a Freethinker

After discussing Sarah's blog in class, I went back to it and reread it to better understand what she was saying. The thing that caught my attention most was the fable she included. (If you haven't already, go read Sarah's blog for a summary of the fable.) I've never heard this fable before, and the use of particular characters is what really made me start to think in-depth about the story. I think it's interesting that it's a wolf (typically scene in fables, myths, and other morality stories as "the bad guy") instead of a stray dog or other animal as the one who chooses to be malnourished and free rather than well-fed and enslaved. One layer of this animal choice implies that sophistication and slavery go hand-in-hand, and that freedom and is found among the dregs of society. It begs the question - does this slavery make the person sophisticated, or is it their sophistication that leads them to choose enslavement?

When this question first occurred to me I dismissed it as rhetorical, that it was just another chicken-or-egg question that bears no importance. As I was revising what I just wrote, I decided that I wanted to change the word 'slavery' because it has very strong connotations that have nothing to do with what I meant by the question in general. In order to think of another word, I had to decide what I do mean by 'slavery.' Suddenly the question left the realm of Rhetorical and plunged into the land of Yes There Is An Answer.

A dog is sophisticated only because he grew up around human masters who feed him and give him "kind words and caresses". Dogs that don't grow up around humans are labeled strays and are only barely above wolves on the canine class ladder. The dog chooses slavery because it is sophisticated. On the other hand, wolves do not grow up with human masters because they are initially considered unsophisticated. Dogs are sophisticated because they are enslaved, while wolves are free because they are unsophisticated.

The spelled-out moral of this story is that people should never trade their freedom for anything. Digging a little deeper, the allegorical meaning of this story is that humans should not give up their individual ability to think independently in order to conform to the thinking of the masses. It is better to be a freethinker (unsophisticated but free) and be shunned by the masses (socially malnourished) than to conform (socially fat and healthy) and not be a thinker at all (sophisticated, yet enslaved by the mass's thoughts).

So, back to the rhetorical-turned-literal question - does this slavery make the person sophisticated, or is it their sophistication that leads them to choose enslavement? If we refer back to dogs and wolves - yet another way that the character choices in this fable mean everything - we see that enslavement (by the pressure to conform) is what makes a nonthinker sophisticated, while the freethinker thinks freely because he is unsophisticated.

The Scientist as a Freethinker

The description on Card no. 26 and the dialogue on Card no. 27 share an extremely scientific, sociopathic view of obtaining information (pg. 174-7). In Card 26, Linnaeus nearly drowns himself because he wants to be able to read clearly underwater. "I amused myself very frequently with this new hobby, and being most interested in the act of reading, constantly forgot that I was nearly suffocation myself." He shows a complete disregard for even his own life because he gets caught up in the amusement of his experiment. On Card 27, there is the same show of amusement, except at the possible expense of someone else's life--a stranger's life, at that. Linnaeus is callous and insensitive to the stranger's emotions because he (the stranger) is merely a potential test subject. The fact that the stranger has not even yet agreed to donate his body to science should the boat sink does not bother Linnaeus in the slightest. In this card we also see that yet again Linnaeus disregards the possibility of his own death. He is so excited about being able to dissect the body of a man who drowned that he doesn't even stop to contemplate the fact that it could be him who drowns instead of the stranger.

In these two cards, Linnaeus's thoughts are completely focused on science, on the ends rather than the means and expenses of his experiments. He can think of nothing else besides the experiment he wants to conduct and how he will go about conducting it. And yet, in the last two lines of Card 27, Peer says, "Horrible fellows these scientists are!/You damned freethinker!" Peer assumes Linnaeus is a freethinker because he thinks differently than the average, nonscientist man would think. However, Linnaeus only thinks of one thing--the next experiment he will conduct. He's not a freethinker after all, just a differentthinker.

Isabel Milkovich

A painting is not necessarily enough to fully depict and reinvent a scene of an ocean shore. It conveys only part of it—the visual. Even if the painting gives life to a still depiction (such as a picture taken with a camera), it lacks the largeness of the sea. Even if the painting is infinitely big, it is only one painting, unchanging with time as the ocean changes with time. The life of the painting is lost because the life is a constant, but real life is never constant.

Other art forms can be added to the painting, and together they can convey the life of the scene. Dance and music both change in time, and show that progression. The painting itself is in two dimensions, but the life that it gives to the scene implies a third dimension. Dance is in three dimensions, but the movement implies a fourth (time). Music has only time as its dimension but is supported by the dimensions of the painting and the dance.

Isabel Milkovich

The woman’s song and the song of the sea supplement each other. They add to each other, but neither overpowers the other. “The sea was not a mask. No more was she.” It is the woman’s song that entices the onlookers because it is alive with her genius, but she isn’t fighting the ocean. Her song rolls along with the rhythm of the ocean’s song, and the ocean’s song and rhythm provide a place for her to sing. “There never was a world for her/Except the one she sang and, singing, made.” Walking along the ocean is the only world the woman knows, and so in a way the ocean provides comfort and protection for her. The woman’s song lifts up the ocean’s song because she makes people notice and contemplate the ocean’s song, even if it is only to determine that the woman’s song is the livelier one.

The woman makes the world in which the ocean sings, because their songs, when sung together, become one. They fuse to make an even deeper song than what is noticed by the onlookers because they are not part of the world in which she and the ocean sing. “She was the single artificer of the world/In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,/Whatever self it had, became the self/That was her song, for she was the maker.” The woman and the sea become one self in their world together, because it is just the two of them, and together they make a song that connects them to the world that we know. They make this connection because at the end of the day they know they must return to our reality and be simply a woman, and simply the sea.