V. NABOKOV’S STOCKHOLM SYNDROME. A FEW WORDS ON THE LOVE FOR THE EXECUTIONER IN V. NABOKOV’S ‘INVITATION TO A BEHEADING’ [PRIGLASHENIE NA KAZN’]
https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2018-2-207-217
Abstract
The first analysis of this kind, the article considers the image of the executioner in V. Nabokov’s novel Invitation to a Beheading [Priglashenie na kazn’]. One of the novel’s main themes is defilement of an individual in a violence-fuelled system. It is through the image of the executioner M’sieur Pierre that we grasp everyman’s cruelty towards the liberal thinker Cincinnatus. At the same time, resisting the executioner, Cincinnatus achieves new insight into the purpose of life and experiences an existential winning of Freedom.
A year before Nabokov’s novel came out P. Lagerkvist published his story The Hangman [Bödeln] (1933) in Swedish. The author points out the hitherto unnoticed similarity between the two works. Comparing two executioners, the author discovers that, although Lagerkvist’s menacing hangman looks nothing like Nabokov’s rotund and vulgar joker M’sieur Pierre, their inherent urge for cruelty and abuse is the same, so is the cheering of the surrounding townsmen. The two different works also share their historical context (Europe in the 1930s): the executioners in Nabokov’s and Lagerkvist’s books embody the new historical discourse.
About the Author
N. Kazakova
Hunter College, CUNY
United States
United States
Natalia Yurievna Kazakova, Candidate of Philology, Adjunct Associate Professor of the Division of Russian and Slavic Languages.
Academic interests include the Russian literature of the 19th century, works of F. Dostoevsky and V. Rozanov, Russian journalism at the turn of the 20th century. She has published a number of articles on aforementioned subjects, as well the book The Philosophy of the Game: Vasily Rozanov as Literary Critic of A. S. Suvorin’s ‘Novoe Vremya’ Newspaper [Filosofiya igry: Vasily Rozanov literaturniy kritik gazety A. S. Suvorina ‘Novoe vremya’] (2001).
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Review
For citations:
Kazakova N. V. NABOKOV’S STOCKHOLM SYNDROME. A FEW WORDS ON THE LOVE FOR THE EXECUTIONER IN V. NABOKOV’S ‘INVITATION TO A BEHEADING’ [PRIGLASHENIE NA KAZN’]. Voprosy literatury. 2018;(2):207-217. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2018-2-207-217
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