Nabokov and the vale of soul making

Lisa Meyer
Dr. Sexson
Lit. 431- Term paper
December 8, 2009

Nabokov and the Vale of soul making


Vladimir Nabokov is in the business of soul making, mainly in Pale fire but in most of his works. The things in which Nabokov focuses upon most such as butterflies, photographs and remembering points directly to one thing, the soul. While the human soul is a complex thing to understand, it is perhaps easier for me to understand than Nabokov himself and his works. I looked to John Keats and his knowledge on soul making to clarify Nabokov’s business of soul making, finding that both of them reflect upon the creation of the soul in steps and address the idea that a soul is unique to the individual to which it belongs.


Nabokov has an obsession with three things closely related to the soul: butterflies, photographs, and time. As I mentioned above, the butterfly is closely related to the soul through the process of metamorphosis. Photographs, as Dr. Sexson captures the soul. Photographs can be startling, in a flash, your photo is taken and your soul captured. The soul is timeless, even when one dies, the soul lives on. The vales do not disappear; they are always there for the soul to continue to work through even if one’s life has come to an end.


The butterfly, in Nabokov’s works (as well as others) represents the psyche; the psyche in turn represents the soul. In Lolita, as Humbert attempts to capture Lolita, a butterfly comes between them. Touching on symbolism, this “inquisitive butterfly” represented one of the many vales in the process of soul making. The butterfly is a vale that Lolita and Humbert need to move past in order for it to be possible for Humbert to capture Lolita. While the butterfly symbolizes the soul directly, it also represents the soul in less obvious ways, for example through other allusions Nabokov calls to attention.


Allusions such as the phantom are shown through the white butterfly in Shade’s poem in Pale Fire. Similar to the butterfly, the soul itself goes through a sort of metamorphosis. Building on the idea of allusions and the soul, reflecting back upon Keats’ “The Vale of Soul Making”, Zembla seems to me like the place beyond the chambers. Zembla is what Keats would refer to as the place beyond the dark passages. It is the land beyond the veil which is where the allusion of the white fountain comes in. This misprint that Shade points out in his poem acts as a uniting of the soul to the woman who had a near death experience similar to Shade’s and may be considered to her “a sacramental bond” but Shade sees it completely differently because they did not in fact see the same image. The white fountain had been beyond Shade’s veil, not hers.


The near death experiences Shade discusses, similar to what Keats has said, leads to a mystery. It also leads beyond the heartache, pain and oppression one feels in the second chamber of Keats’ vale of soul making or the world of pain Shade describes. Moving further with Zembla, known as a dreamland, dreams it must be said can also be like a prison. Would it not make sense then to consider Keats’ chambers prisons? To me, that is nearly what the chambers in the vale of soul making are. There is either no thought, like in chamber one or the infant chamber or there is simply pain and heartache, like in chamber two, in which we are convinced that the world is full of misery. Chamber two is also the chamber that we begin to feel the “burden of the mystery”, according to Keats. How could one not consider that to be similar to a prison? That is only one other way in which Nabokov’s allusions are connected to Keats’ chambers.


To continue with John Shade’s poem and how it connects to John Keats, it would be necessary to point out what Keats feels poetry should be. Keats has said, “Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost as a remembrance”. That is exactly what Shade’s poem is, a remembrance of Hazel. Reading Shade’s poem numerous times, it became more and more clear that John Shade put not only his highest of thought into it, but his most private, surprising thoughts that are deeply connected to the pain and suffering within his life. It is simply, as I see it, a reflection of his soul and a reflection of Hazel’s soul as well as a remembrance of Hazel.


Keats also addresses the veil of tears which is one vale a person must move past in order to reach the vale of soul making. One’s soul is not able to acquire identity until reaching this stage. While I feel as if I jump from subject to subject, theme to theme, it all connects back to soul making within the works of Nabokov. Tears are, in a sense, water which is a major theme in Nabokov’s works, not one single person can deny that.


While it is simple to say that, not all would connect water to soul when they first came across it. Immediately, the vale of tears comes to mind. The death of Hazel in Pale fire seemed especially ironic to me because tears and death are so closely connected, another undeniable point. Not only is Hazel’s death saddening and more than likely bringing tears to more than one person’s eye, but she drowns. Symbolically, it is as if she drowned in her own lake of tears.

Deciphering the soul making of Hazel is a difficult task though because I have mixed thoughts that, to an extent, contradict each other. My first thought was that Hazel had moved past the vale of tears when she died, the vale was simply her own tears. Therefore, before her death or at least when she reached the point of death her soul was already transcending into another stage. On the other hand, it seems to me that Hazel is caught in the second chamber and does not have time to escape that chamber before she takes her life. The second chamber of heartache, pain and suffering has imprisoned her. Hazel feels all of these things I am guessing if she could not live another day. Could it be that her soul was then made or did the suffering prevent that from happening?

Keats sees the vales as something we need to lift, to push through in order to get to the mystery. I agree wholeheartedly with this, yet find the vales to be symbolic to the troubles. Isn’t that what we try to push through, and what our souls must overcome. Pain and suffering, or troubles aid in the process of soul making and are unique to that individual. Not everyone suffers in the same way; we must all lift our own vales in our own way, at our own time.
Nabokov connects the soul to nature in his works which emphasizes the beauty and complexity of the soul. Nature in a way is something that can’t be touched or something that no one wants to be touched. Similarly, the soul is not able to be physically altered but can be affected greatly in other ways, for example, through experience and memories. Not only is the soul connected to land in Nabokov’s Pale Fire, but to the universe in general. Pale Fire points out that the planets are the landfalls of the soul. The “land beyond the veil” is similar to a chamber though, it is hazy and the haze acts as a sort of vale, or smoke beyond the orchard landscape that must be lifted or overcome.

In Lolita, Nabokov makes many references to the soul and Lolita’s soul I just as complex as that of John and Hazel Shade’s souls. Humbert Humbert contemplates the soul of Lolita a lot throughout the book and I contemplate how the many losses, such as innocence, childhood and a life free of pedophiles, will affect her soul. It is sickening to think that Humbert considers others harpies whom, I would like to emphasize, are soul stealers of the dead. I think that it is fair to say that Humbert himself is very similar to a “harpie” because he too steals souls. Humbert’s soul stealing could be considered far worse because he steals from the living Lolita. Humbert does not even consider himself to have his own soul. Referring to Lolita, he immediately makes it clear at the beginning of the book that Lolita is “my sin, my soul Lo-Lee-tah”. I think that perhaps, Lolita’s soul could be recovered through reflecting upon the things that happened throughout her life, especially the moments including Humbert.

In “Care of the Soul”, Thomas Moore touches on how the complexity of family and abuse affect the soul. The complexity comes with the idea that though abuse is present, family is still family. While this idea is somewhat disturbing, is it possible to deny that this is true? This brought me to the idea that the soul is not able to be changed and one must simply learn to live with disturbing feelings like envy and jealousy. Humbert portrays this idea well through his character because he does not seem to feel any remorse or negative feelings about his actions. Humbert is a father figure to Lolita and abuses her sexually. He realizes what he is doing and though it is not right, he comes to accept it for what it is, or I should say he accepts himself for who he is. With envy and jealousy, Humbert also has feelings of fear and desire.

Thomas Moore asks in The Care of the Soul, were the good old days so good?” He sees them perhaps as dysfunctional now, but does not see the “dys” in dysfunctional but “dis”, in connection with the mythological underworld. Ironically enough, Keats also believes that the “soul enters life from below finding an opening into life at points where the smooth functioning breaks down”. This again relates closely with Lolita in connection to both the underworld and the dysfunctional life of Lolita.

I ask myself while writing this, even after all these thoughts, “what is beyond these vales and how do we choose which vale to lift, which opening to do we enter through?” The human soul is not necessarily meant to be understood, for it is far too complex and it is not meant to be changed or forced through its metamorphosis, yet I can’t help but constantly study Keats and many other writers in regards to the soul. The fact that Keats raises the idea of many entrances filled with light beyond the two chambers allows us to see that there is mystery beyond these two soul making chambers. The saying that there is light at the end of the tunnel could easily be applied, lightly of course, to Keats’ letters and one could also say, there is light at the end of the chamber.

John Keats, Thomas Moore and Nabokov are perhaps three of the most intelligent writers that touch upon soul making. They understand the complexity and clarify that the human soul must develop and is unique to each individual’s life experiences in which the soul goes through a unique metamorphosis of its own. Nabokov uses images and characters to symbolize the soul in a complex yet intelligent way. His readers must work to understand not only his characters and the images he uses, but the soul itself. The soul is not necessarily good or bad, though intricately unique to each individual no matter their character which Nabokov clarifies through his works.