Analysis Of Vladimir Nabokov's The Gift

Rich in its complexity, Vladimir Nabokov’s The Gift deviates from standard literature in its lack of a standard narrative form. The Gift is structured in five chapters that vary significantly in tone, voice, pacing and narrative purpose; although Fyodor can be considered the main protagonist, the stylistic changes, shifting perspectives and "presentation of time" (Dolinin 7) within each chapter suggests that Fyodor 's voice cannot reliably be considered as the voice of the narrator. This is further complicated by Fyodor 's decision to write a novel at the end of Chapter 5, which will presumably be The Gift; by creating a scenario where the main protagonist declares his next work will be the one which is currently being read, the suggestion is that Fyodor is simply a thinly veiled representation of the author. However, the true narrator of The Gift is not the voice of Fyodor nor Nabokov, but the voice of the created work itself: The Gift, as a text and created work of art, is its own narrator. In his 1962 foreword, Vladimir Nabokov writes, “Its [The Gift’s] heroine is not Zina, but Russian Literature” (Nabokov N. pag.). Literature’s role progresses with the novel, as the created work gains a voice of its own. The first two chapters are intended to read as a standard narrative. Whose voice is the reader hearing? Presumably, the narrator in these chapters is Fyodor. In Chapter 1, Nabokov writes using standard introductory conventions of Russian literature. The

The style and tone show The Gift’s narrator is a Russian émigré poet. Therefore, the “voice,” one hears is Fyodor. Nabokov continues the conventional first-person structure for the first two chapters. However, Chapters 3, 4 and 5 subvert this structure (Blackwell 118) and therefore give pause to Fyodor 's role as