Nabokov’s Irony Of Chernyshevsky In The Gift-A Perspective From Wayne Booth’s Rhetoric Of Irony

The Gift is acclaimed as the best Russian novel of Vladimir Nabokov.In it,Nabokov describes the literary growth and love story of a young Russian émigré Fyodor who lived in Berlin.In the preface of this novel’s English version,Nabokov claims that “ The heroine of this novel is not Zina but Russian literature”.In fact,the literary growth of Fyodor metaphorically illustrates the evolving process of Russian literature.Adopting the three main irony rhetoric devices of Wayne Booth’s,namely verbal irony,situational irony and structural irony,this paper focuses on the Fyodor’s biography of Chernyshevsky in chapter four to satirize Chernvshevsky’s pragmatic literary view,reveal the imitation and disadvantages of his theory,and subvert the democratic image of Chernyshevsky.Fyodor holds the opinion that the concept “pure art” put forward by Pushkin and the utilitarian art attitude held by Chernyshevsky serves as two opposite main lines of Russian culture.This thesis consists of five chapters in total.Chapter one introduces Nabokov,his literary works and literature review of The Gift.Chapter two adopts verbal irony to satirize Chernyshevsky’s reality view.In The Relation of Art to Reality,Chernyshevsky states that reality is prior to art and life is the only source of art.By using understatement and overstatement,Nabokov ironizes Chernyshevsky’s view that art is inferior imitation of reality and defends the autonomy of art.Ironically,as Fyodor’s biography is refused to be published in the plots of the novel,the forth chapter of The Gift is also turned down in real life.Thus Nabokov deems that it serves as a perfect case to prove that it is life imitate the art rather than the opposite.Chapter three employs situational irony to satirize Chervshevsky’s “life is beauty”.It adopts irony of events and irony of fate to describe the great discrepancy between Chernvshevsky’s aesthetic thoughts and his actual life,in which Chernyshevsky is portrayed as a ridiculous funny character.Fyodor holds the viewpoint that the life philosophy of Chernyshevsky is one-sided and it ignores some unknown consciousness or mysterious power which exerts influence on life in some way.Chapter four uses the structural irony to satirize Chernyshevsky’s artistic view.Chernyshevsky values the average,measurable reality which agrees with the conventional law.For character portrayal,he holds the view that it is unnecessary to change the “typical people in reality”,which leads to the hollowness and categorization of characters.Fyodor deems that life is filled with unpredictable incidents and thus is extremely complicated.He uses occurring themes such as “father-and-son” and“Pushkin”,and the spiral narrative pattern of “biography” and “literature line” to reveal the complexity of life and the uniqueness of each individual progress.Chapter five is the conclusion part.This thesis is helpful to deepen the artistic view of Nabokov and his Russian cultural background and uncover the fact that Nabokov’s irony of Chernyshevsky is not out of personal grudge.In fact,he shows great sympathy to the miserable exile experience of Chernyshevsky.What Nabokov ironzies is Chernyshevsky’s pragmatic artistic notion,such as “reality is superior to art” and “ art should serve for practical purposes”,and Chernyshevsky’s reckless judgment toward Pushkin and Gogol.Through the irony of Chernyshevsky’s literary view,Nabokov reflects Chernyshevsky’s negative influence on Russian literature and ravels out the disordered chaos in the circle of Russian emigrants.In the eyes of Nabokov,the biography of Chernyshevsky serves as a mirror,which expresses Russian emigrants’ different views on Russian tradition and its future.