The Dark Laughter "

Vladimir Nabokov was the famous contemporary Russian Americannovelist. Though he died years ago, he still enjoys world wide reputation. Inforeign countries, there have been a lot of articles and monographs on him.Nabokov Institute has been established in Kansas University. NabokovScholars, a half-monthly journal, has been published continuously since 1978.Moreover, Nabokov study is also carried out on the Internet. But in China,studies on him are still on a preliminary stage. The aim of this thesis is todiscuss his writings from the perspective of Nabokov's satire, which may helpus have a comprehensive understanding of this famous writer.The life story of Nabokov is legendry. The era in which he lived was filledwith wars and revolutions. Born in a noble family, he had a happy childhood,and experienced the superiority brought by his family. His exilic life in Europemade him suffer the disgrace of depending on others and the embarrassment ofpoverty. But even in this environment, he still pursued the luxury ofintelligence. Dull, tedious teaching life in America provided him with bestwriting surroundings and enabled him to write such famous novels as Lolita,Pnin, Pale Fire etc. It was his special experiences, his broad and profoundknowledge, and his creative personality that formed his unique style. Hisnovels were permeated with an atmosphere of satire, which I call "laughter inthe dark", the title of one of his works. The reason why I take this phrase as aclue of grasping his novels is that it covers rich and different meanings.On the surface thematic level, Nabokov's novels include his sharpsatire and ridicule on his homeland, his homesickness, the edge-living state,34 }~ 4~- 48 ~the weaknesses in American culture, the silly crime and the heroes.On the aesthetic level, Nabokov's novels prove the proposition "literatureis fictional" and turn his critical target to the traditional proposition "literatureis realistic". The purpose of the revealing of the narrators or the author intraditional novels is to fortify the creditability of the story, while Nabokovemploys the "metafiction" strategy, which results in self-reference of the text.This way not only satirizes the narrator's arrogance and ridiculousness, butalso overturns and derides the traditional novels' proposition completely.Guided by the idea of "literature is fictional", Nabokov achieves his aim ofsatire by using all kinds of narrative skills, which enrich his satire content andinnovate the ironic skills. Moreover, the use of parody enlarges the scope ofsatiric objects and overturns traditional theme, style and structure completelyand leads to the intertextuality. Through the discussion from the three aspectsmentioned above, we can find out that with the deepening of his writing, hissatiric objects become richer and richer, which destruct the traditional form ofnovels and make satire itself ascend to a kind of theme. To some extent, hisnovels have become a satire carnival.Nabokov's "laughter in the dark" contains special features. Different fromtraditional writers, Nabokov's satire involves certain political and socialphenomenon, while actually his satire is concentrated on individuals. Hecombines the tragic character and comic character in his heroes perfectly,which shows ridiculousness and sadness. We can say that, they belong to theunique hero type created by Nabokov and have certain significance inliterature history.The other specific feature of Nabokov's novels is the relationship betweenthe reader and the author. Only the grasping satire skills of Nabokov maymake the reader and the author burst into laughter together. The self-reference45 ~ 4~ 48 ~of Nabokov's novels make the reader become detectors in re...