''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

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and, sadly, even his mother.
This world is ridiculous and comic, but it is also
frightening. Its inhabitants are ridiculous, but they
are dangerous and cruel. Although they are no more,
apparently,. than comical dummies and dolls, they believe
in their own reality
29;
they have assumed a
position of absolute power which they use mercilessly
to destroy anyone who is not like them or who
doubts their own reality and the reality of what
is their world. Mechanical creatures, with no will
and no minds of their own absurdly rule over human
beings.
The most obvious and most striking example of the
fusion of the comic and the threatening and
terrifying is of course M'sieur Pierre. When he
is first seen, he seems harmless enough:
Seated on a chair, sideways to the
table, as still as if he were made
of candy, was a beardless fat little
man, about thirty years old, dressed
in old-fashioned but clean and
freshly ironed prison-pyjamas;
he was all in stripes - in striped
socks and brand-new morocco slippers
- and revealed a virgin sole as he
sat with one stubby leg crossed
over the other and clasped his shin
with his plump hands;... his long
eyelashes cast shadows on his
cherubic cheek, and the whiteness
of his wonderful, even teeth
gleamed between his crimson lips
(IB, 53).
The impression of him as a comic figure is
created when he next appears, when his calm and
composed and pompous dignity is described in ironically
exaggerated terms and forms a comic contrast with
his appearance. Tentatively only on this occasion,