Abstract
The intention of this paper is not to offer an extra-literary schema of Jungian analysis or interpretation of PALE FIRE, but to present credible evidence of Nabokov’s intentional use of the theories of Carl Jung as a major parodic and allegoric substrate of the novel. I look at the relationship of the three main characters, Kinbote, Shade, and Gradus, as the three main Jungian archetypal components of the psyche: the ego, persona, and shadow. These elements form the ‘Tri-part Man,’ a notion common to a number of metaphysical systems, but most clearly evinced in PALE Fire through psychologist Carl Jung’s theories of archetypes and alchemy. Kinbote, Shade, and Gradus, are archetypes as sub-personalities within the psyche of one man. That man, however, is not one of the three, but the three-in-one: the novel’s absent and enigmatic cipher, Professor V. Botkin.
