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The Double

April 29, 2017 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Double is sometimes known under its German name, the Doppelganger. It is a cultural phenomenon most often present in literature and studies of psychology. The term is used to describe situations in which one person appears to be a duplicate of or a close parallel to another. The scenario is often presented in a manner which cannot easily be explained.

The similarities between the two figures might be physical, or psychological, or both. In some cases the first person is very conscious of being shadowed or threatened by the existence of the second person or double figure. In other cases the two figures are merely presented simultaneously, and the observer (the reader) is left to draw the inference that they are being offered as twin examples of the same or very similar characteristics.

Alternatively, the two figures might throw psychological light on each other. They are often used in such a way that reflects the complex divisions or contradictions that might exist within an individual personality. These divisions are often known under the collective phrase ‘the divided self’.

In fiction, the unsettling nature of this phenomenon is normally perceived or related from the first person’s (character’s) point of view. That is, the principal character becomes aware of the second character who often threatens, displaces, or triumphs over the first.

The double is sometimes interpreted as an exploration of two sides of the same personality. That is, the fictional creation is perceived as the representation of some innate duality in human psychology. This might be seen as the ‘good’ and the ‘evil’ that are potential in human nature. In such cases the two figures may be presented as opposites – but with some inexplicable attraction to each other or purpose in common.

In Freudian psycho-analytic terms such binary figures can be seen as battles between the Super-ego and the Id, taking place within the individual’s Ego. The human being (Ego) is trying to abide by a set of rules or moral standards dictated by a notion of what is ‘right’. These rules are dictated by the Super-ego or conscience. But the Ego’s efforts are thwarted by the human desire to satisfy all sorts of forbidden or irrational impulses. These deeply submerged impulses are dictated by the Id or the unconscious.

Literary tradition

There is a long tradition of stories which deal with ‘the double’ theme. These are narratives featuring a character who feels the presence of, thinks he perceives, or sometimes even sees another character who has the same appearance or name as himself. The second character might succeed in society where the first character fails, or the second might perform some anti-social act for which the first character is blamed. Examples include Edgar Alan Poe’s Wiliam Wilson (1839), Fyodor Dostoyevski’s The Double (1846), and Vladimir Nabokov’s The Eye (1930).

Very often these stories are first person narratives in which it becomes clear to the reader that the second character does not actually exist, but is a projection of the narrator’s imagination – an ‘alternative’ personality, or ‘another self’ representing a fear or a wish-fulfilment.

Very often other characters in the narrative are either unaware of the second ‘doubling’ figure – or they might mistake one person for the other, because they are so similar. You can see some of these variations in the examples that follow.

The Double – further reading

Karl Miller, Doubles in Literary History – Amazon UK

Karl Miller, Doubles in Literary History – Amazon US

Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny – Amazon UK

Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny – Amazon US

Otto Rank, Double: A Psychoanalytic Study – Amazon UK

Otto Rank, Double: A Psychoanalytic Study – Amazon US

Andrew Hock, The Double in Literature< – Amazon UK

Andrew Hock, The Double in Literature – Amazon US

The Double – examples

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is a wonderful example of the double presented as two apparent opposites. Victor Frankenstein is young, refined, well educated, and in love with his beautiful fiance Elizabeth. He creates a Monster who is giant-sized, crude, and savagely violent. However, they are locked in a very symbiotic relationship.

Frankenstein and his Monster are like contradictory parts of the same person. The Monster is the active, physical side of Frankenstein (the scholar) but also more obviously the ‘evil’ side. He performs acts almost on Frankenstein’s behalf (to carry out his subconscious wishes) daring to do what Frankenstein can not. As Masao Miyoshi has observed ‘The common error of calling the Monster ‘Frankenstein’ has considerable justification. He is the scientist’s divided self.’

It is possible to take this analysis even further by regarding Frankenstein and the Monster as one and the same being. They are like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The justification for this view turns largely on the fact that Frankenstein is always ‘absent’ when the murders are commuted, and nobody else in the novel ever sees Frankenstein and the Monster together in the same scene. For an essay that explains this interpretation in further detail, see Frankenstein: the romance, the double, the psyche

William Wilson

Edgar Allen Poe’s story William Wilson (1839) (from his famous collection Tales of Mystery and Imagination) is an account of someone who, from his schooldays onward, feels he is being hampered and challenged by a figure who has the same name as himself. Not only has he the same name, but the same birthday, the same clothes, and the ability to appear at crucial moments, issuing warnings and advice.

The double has a habit of appearing at crucial moments, just as William Wilson is going to commit some anti-social act. He ruins a young nobleman by cheating at cards, and finally is about to seduce a young married woman when he is challenged by his conscience and double. He plunges his rapier into the double, only to discover himself in front of a full length mirror covered in blood. In killing his ‘better self’ he has brought about his own death.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novella Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is a perfect example of this literary trope. The story is that Dr Jekyll is an upright and well-respected member of the community in Edinburgh. But a series of malicious attacks on innocent people are perpetrated by a Mr Hyde.

Jekyll and Hyde are polar opposites. Jekyll is tall, upright, honest, and philanthropic. Hyde is small and malignant to the extent that he commits murder. They seem to be representations of the conscious and the unconscious mind – the Ego and the Id. It transpires they are actually one and the same person. Jekyll has been experimenting with drugs that will allow him to transform himself into another identity.

Almost every element in the story has a parallel or a double. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are two aspects of the same man. Jekyll’s house has two entrances – one the respectable public front entrance, the other a partly hidden, secret, and locked rear entrance. Thus the main subject of the novella is reinforced its thematically linked details.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray features an interesting twist on the ‘double’ theme. There are two two figures in the story – but one of them is a painting. Dorian Gray is a beautiful young man who has his portrait painted at the start of the narrative. He puts the painting in an attic and gives himself up to a life of self-indulgence.

As the years go by his ego centrism is responsible for the suffering of people around him, and he even kills a close friend – and yet he remains as youthful and beautiful as ever. However, the painting in the attic is meanwhile ageing.

Eventually he is oppressed by feelings of guilt, but feels that the painting has somehow cheated him. He resolves to destroy it, but in the final scene the painting has become young again, whilst Dorian is dead with a knife in his heart – a wrinkled, withered, and age-ravaged old man.

The painting acts as an ‘objective correlative’ of Dorian Gray’s self-indulgence, and the evil his corruption has generated, whilst leaving him apparently unchanged in outward appearance. The image of ‘a painting in the attic’ has become a popular metaphor and reference when commenting about people who seem to have unfairly escaped the ageing process.

The Secret Sharer

Joseph Conrad’s celebrated novella The Secret Sharer (1910) is explicitly packed with the features of the double theme. Its young unnamed narrator is a ship’s captain who at night takes on board an escapee from another nearby ship. This man Leggatt, has saved his own ship during a storm but in doing so has killed a malicious fellow seaman.

The young captain and Leggatt are of similar age. They attended the same elite sailor’s training school. They are both bare footed when they meet. The captain gives Leggatt his own sleeping suit to wear, so that they look the same, and he puts him into his own bed in order to conceal him. The captain immediately (and throughout the tale) refers to Leggatt as his ‘double’ and ‘secret self’. Leggatt was chief mate on the Sephora – and presumably the young captain had previously been a mate before promotion to captain.

The two men echo each other’s gestures. The captain feels that they are both ‘strangers on board’. Leggatt is a stranger because he comes from another ship, the captain is a stranger in that he has only recently taken up his command. The captain refers to Leggatt as if he is looking in a mirror. Eventually, he assists Leggatt to evade detection and allows him to escape to a nearby island.

Conrad often creates stories in which someone is presented with a moral dilemma or an existential crisis. This experience might also involve confronting ethically complex situations or other characters who have dared to cross the line between good and evil.

The Eye

As a Russian novelist, Vladimir Nabokov was very well aware of the double tradition in literature, and used the device frequently – often to comic or macabre effect. In his early novella The Eye (1930) he creates a neurotic un-named first person narrator who is a double in two senses. First he attempts suicide half way through the story, and then afterwards (having failed) refers to himself in the third person, as if he were observing himself from outside the story. He claims ‘In respect to myself I was now an onlooker’.

Then in the second part of the story he circulates in fashionable society where he meets a man called Smurov. He finds this man very charming and attractive, attributing to him all sorts of positive virtues and social success. Smurov however behaves in a clumsy and insensitive manner, and is eventually revealed as a liar. It becomes clear to the reader that Smurov and the narrator are one and the same person.

In this variation on the double theme it is the narrator who is a failure, and he makes his double a success – a projection of what he wishes to be. But because he is a hopelessly neurotic person, his efforts fail.

Despair

In his novel Despair (1932) Nabokov offers a further variation of the double theme. His first person narrator Hermann decides to fake his own death in order to claim on an insurance policy. At the same time he also wishes to commit the ‘perfect crime’. In order to do this he finds a man whom he believes to be his exact double. He befriends this man (Felix), they exchange clothes, and he then murders him.

The story is related entirely from Hermann’s point of view, but Nabokov scatters clues throughout the tale which enable the reader to realise the truth. Felix is nothing like Hermann: he is not a double at all. Hermann is deranged, and at the end of the story he in hiding, waiting to be arrested by the police.

The renaissance double

We can see from these examples that the double was largely a phenomenon of the nineteenth century. But since it now seems to reveal something fundamental about human consciousness, it is also possible to see examples in earlier works. For instance, it is possible in a renaissance work such as Othello to see the two main characters of Othello and Iago as opposite sides of the same character

Othello is proud, honest, unsophisticated, and some would say naive. Iago on the other hand is scheming, deceitful, and villainous. They also both have designs on the same woman – Desdemona. Iago is the murky, unprincipled sub-conscious or id to Othello’s super-ego. Iago will stoop to any depths to achieve his ends, whilst Othello is doing only what is right until he is tricked into murdering his own wife – still thinking he is doing right

A Tale of Two Cities

There are elements of the double in A Tale of Two Cities. The hero of the novel is Charles Darney, an upright and honourable young Englishman. His opposite is Sydney Carton, a disreputable and alcoholic lawyer who takes a cynical and self-serving view of everything that life presents to him. Yet the two men look like each other, and they are both in love with the same woman – Lucy Minette

When Darney is eventually captured by the French revolutionaries and imprisoned in the Bastille, Carton secures his escape and offers himself as a look-alike substitute. He goes to his death on the guillotine as an act of noble self-sacrifice saying ‘It is a far better thing I do than I have ever done’. The once dissolute Carton redeems himself personally and morally by the sacrifice of his wicked self to his good self.

The Duel

September 2, 2013 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Duel – full title The Duel: A Military Story – was first serialized in The Pall Mall Magazine (UK) in early 1908, and later that year in the US as The Point of Honour in the periodical Forum. It was later collected in A Set of Six in 1908 and published by Garden City Publishing in 1924. The other stories in this collection of Joseph Conrad’s tales are are Gaspar Ruiz, An Anarchist, The Informer, The Brute, and Il Conde.

The Duel – critical commentary

Background

This is another of Conrad’s stories with the Napoleonic wars as a background (the others being The Inn of the Two Witches (1913) and The Warrior’s Soul (1915). Perhaps Conrad was looking back on a previous period in history which engulfed a whole continent in wars. The sad fact is that none of these historically-based tales are at all satisfactory from an artistic point of view when compared with his best work.

You can see the points Conrad is making easily enough in this tale. An innocent man is challenged according to a Code of Honour he feels duty bound to accept. His antagonist is vengeful, petty, and jealous. The duel to establish someone’s honour is a complete waste of time. D’Hubert does everything he can to give Ferand satisfaction: he even ends up secretly providing him with a pension – but still the blaggard Ferand continues to nurture what he sees as his legitimate but unfulfilled grievance.

Duelling

The rules of duelling varied (slightly) from one country to another, and they changed over time – from their origins in the chivalric age to their expiry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But no rules of engagement ever recorded permitted hiding behind trees. That would be completely contrary to the whole notion of gentlemanly behaviour and sporting ethics. It’s a puzzle why Conrad should make such a blunder when he is normally so accurate with the technical details of the things he describes.

But then, if ever a tale was spun out way beyond its natural length, it’s The Duel, which later became more ironically titled A Point of Honour. It suffers from all the weaknesses of Conrad’s shorter fictions – repetition, shifting locations, weak structure, and unconvincing historical context. It is just possible that because the tale was serialized in The Pall Mall Magazine that Conrad was tempted into these literary excesses.

The Duel – study resources

The Duel – CreateSpace editions – Amazon UK

The Duel – CreateSpace editions – Amazon US

The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad – Kindle eBook

The Duel – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

The Duel – plot summary

Part I. Lieutenant Armand D’Hubert calls at the house where Lieutenant Ferand is billeted in Strasbourg, in search of information on his whereabouts. Ferand has risen early, fought a duel with a civilian and injured him, then gone out to call on a woman who holds a salon. D’Hubert goes to the house and transmits to Ferand the official message that he must return to his quarters and remain under arrest. Ferand is annoyed, and cannot see that he has done anything wrong. D’Hubert explains that his opponent’s civilian friends are well connected and have made complaints. When the two men return to the house Ferand threatens D’Hubert for disturbing his afternoon. Ferand draws his sword and challenges him to a duel on the spot, in the rear garden. D’Hubert realises that Ferand seriously wishes to kill him, and that the duel will get both of them into trouble, but he manages to strike a damaging blow to Ferand, which cuts his arm. D’Hubert then visits the regimental surgeon and sends him to attend Ferand. He is annoyed with Ferand but glad he has not killed him.

D’Hubert is disgraced and reduced to the ranks. Then he is visited by the surgeon who tells him that Ferand, having now recovered, intends to continue the dispute with a further duel. The public assume that there must be a very serious difference between the two soldiers to make them risk their reputations in this way.

Part II. Various theories are advanced in society to try to explain the conflict. The two men arrange another duel, in which D’Hubert is slightly hurt. Their seconds urge a reconciliation, but it does not take place. There is a proposal to appoint a deciding Court of Honour to resolve the dispute, but Ferand prefers to say nothing.

The colonel of D’Hubert’s regiment is concerned, takes a parental interest, and asks for an explanation. D’Hubert refuses to go into details, but assures him it is a matter of honour – both personal, and for the regiment. The colonel imposes a twelve month ban on any further duelling, during which time D’Hubert is promoted. This renders any further challenge impossible under the codes of duelling, because of the differences in rank of the disputants.

Ferand then seeks and gains promotion, which leads to another duel. This leaves them both cut to ribbons. After they recover D’Hubert is promoted again onto the personal staff of a marshall. Ferand cannot stand the idea of having to take orders from him. The next duel takes place on horseback at dawn in Lubeck. D’Hubert inflicts a single damaging blow to Ferand’s forehead and the duel is stopped. Both men stay on in the army, and gradually grow older.

Part III. During the retreat from Moscow in Napoleon’s disastrous campaign, the two men are yoked in misery and defeat, but choose to ignore each other. However, they co-operate in military terms, and even help each other to survive. D’Hubert becomes dressed in a bizarre collection of old clothes collected from the wreckage of the retreat. He wants a peaceful life, and even begins to doubt the wisdom of Napoleon. However, his good conduct is favourably noticed by the ‘Emperor’, and when he is promoted to a general, this inflames Ferand’s rivalry.

D’Hubert is badly wounded, and recuperates at his Royalist sister’s home in the south of France. Then he is despatched to Paris and is introduced to a girl who he plans to marry. Napoleon is on St Helena, and the royalists plan to persecute Ferand. D’Hubert intervenes with the Minister of Police, and has Ferand’s name removed from the list of Bonapartist officers due to be punished (executed).

As a result, Ferand is retired from the army and banished to an obscure town in the middle of France. Instead of being grateful, he is outraged at the indignity, and plans yet another duel with D’Hubert.

Part IV. D’Hubert is in love with Adele, the girl his sister has chosen for him, though she does not seem to reciprocate his feelings. But Ferand’s seconds catch up with him and present the renewed challenge. D’Hubert consults Chevalier de Vallmassigne, Adele’s royalist uncle, who suggests he can refuse the challenge – but D’Hubert feels unable to do so. He sees it as an inevitability he must face.

The duel takes place early next morning with pistols. D’Hubert nonchalantly eats an orange before the contest [a nod to Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin] . Ferand fires twice, but misses D’Hubert who hides behind trees, then spares his rival’s life yet again by conserving his two unspent shots for any time in the future.

He gets back home to find that the Chevalier de Vallmassigne has told Adele what has been going on, and she has. run all the way to D’Hubert’s house in anxiety about his wellbeing. This effectively reveals the true state of her feelings towards D’Hubert, who is overjoyed. They are married, after which D’Hubert writes to Ferand revoking his two-shot advantage, and even names one of his two sons after him, and (secretly) pays a pension to him for his upkeep in retirement. But Ferand remains unreconciled.

Joseph Conrad – video biography

The Duel – principal characters

Gabriel Florian Ferand	a short, dark soldier
Armand D’Hubert	a tall, fair soldier
Leonie D’Hubert	his sister
Madame de Lionne	a married Parisian woman with a salon
Adele de Valmassigne	D’Hubert’s fiancée
Le Chevalier de Valmassigne	her uncle, a royalist ex-emigré

Joseph Conrad’s writing

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad offers a series of essays by leading Conrad scholars aimed at both students and the general reader. There’s a chronology and overview of Conrad’s life, then chapters that explore significant issues in his major writings, and deal in depth with individual works. These are followed by discussions of the special nature of Conrad’s narrative techniques, his complex relationships with late-Victorian imperialism and with literary Modernism, and his influence on other writers and artists. Each essay provides guidance to further reading, and a concluding chapter surveys the body of Conrad criticism.
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Joseph Conrad’s writing table

Other writing by Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim (1900) is the earliest of Conrad’s big and serious novels, and it explores one of his favourite subjects – cowardice and moral redemption. Jim is a ship’s captain who in youthful ignorance commits the worst offence – abandoning his ship. He spends the remainder of his adult life in shameful obscurity in the South Seas, trying to re-build his confidence and his character. What makes the novel fascinating is not only the tragic but redemptive outcome, but the manner in which it is told. The narrator Marlowe recounts the events in a time scheme which shifts between past and present in an amazingly complex manner. This is one of the features which makes Conrad (born in the nineteenth century) considered one of the fathers of twentieth century modernism.
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Heart of Darkness (1902) is a tightly controlled novella which has assumed classic status as an account of the process of Imperialism. It documents the search for a mysterious Kurtz, who has ‘gone too far’ in his exploitation of Africans in the ivory trade. The reader is plunged deeper and deeper into the ‘horrors’ of what happened when Europeans invaded the continent. This might well go down in literary history as Conrad’s finest and most insightful achievement, and it is based on his own experiences as a sea captain. This volume also contains ‘An Outpost of Progress’ – the magnificent study in shabby cowardice which prefigures ‘Heart of Darkness’.
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Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
Joseph Conrad complete tales

The Edwardians

July 22, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Vita Sackville-West’s best-selling novel

The Edwardians first appeared in 1930, and was a deliberate attempt on Vita Sackville-West’s part to write a best-seller. The amazing thing is that like so many of the other things she did in her rich and unusual life, she succeeded. It sold 20,000 copies in its first two months, outstripping the success of her friend, lover, and fellow author Virginia Woolf. It’s a story of the aristocratic milieu from which she herself sprang, and is a rich blend of sentimental nostalgia for a world which had almost disappeared by the time she came to write it, and a critical analysis of some of the reasons why that disappearance occurred.

The principal characters are from a single grand family: Lucy a widowed baroness, Sebastian her young Duke-to-be son, his sister Viola, and the glamorous Lady Roehampton who becomes his mistress. But the main character is the Elizabethan house where they live – served by its small army of servants. What makes her account of the period artistically successful is that she divides the tensions in her own opinions between the various characters. All the positive portrayal of the Edwardian haute monde is given full force, but it is offset by the sceptical views of outsiders such as the explorer Leonard Anquetil who sees through the shallowness and pointlessness of the characters’ lives.

The writing is elegant, well-paced, witty, and vocabulary-rich without being intimidating – all qualities which West’s original publisher Leonard Woolf correctly predicted would make the book a best-seller. She’s rather a playful narrator, speaking to the reader, or pretending that there are things which must be left unsaid, out of deference to propriety:

“It makes one’s blood run cold, doesn’t it, to think of the hands one’s letters might fall into? I suppose it’s a letter to …” and here she uttered a name so august that in deference to the respect and loyalty of the printer it must remain unrevealed.

West keeps the narrative very firmly in her own hands as an omniscient narrator. And at times she is given to brief apercus which are like a watered-down version of Proust. The explorer Anquetil reflects on his brief invitation to a weekend party at the Great House:

For his own part, he felt convinced that he would never see Chevron again; the incident would be isolated in his life; he was too active for England ever to hold him long, and already he had other plans in preparation, but the short incursion into this strangely segregated world had surprisingly enriched him, as one is enriched by any experience one had believed to be entirely outside the scope of one’s sympathies, and which unexpectedly acquires a life of its own in a new reach of one’s comprehension.

The only plot as such is the succession of affairs embarked on by Duke-to-be Sebastian as he vainly attempts to break free from the weight of tradition in which the House, the Estate, and family expectations gradually engulf him. A much larger issue is the conduct of the entire class itself, and how it tries to preserve itself through property, marriage, and inheritance. This is satirically presented, and is counterbalanced by a surprisingly sympathetic view of the new and rising forces of the Edwardian era which, together with the imminent debacle of 1914-18 would virtually wipe it off the map altogether.

The novel offers a wonderfully rich lesson in the social history of a bygone world: not only the fine details of social ranking below and above stairs, but such arcana as the distinctions between a carriage, a victoria, and a brougham as modes of transport, plus the social niceties of giving offence whilst appearing to be polite by proffering two or three fingers instead of the full five when shaking hands.

Vita Sackville-West was herself an aristocratic snob of the highest order, but this novel is proof positive that gifted authors can rise above the limitations of their own opinions to create a picture of the world which is rich, complex, and even capable of expressing values which they themselves do not hold. Highly recommended.

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Vita Sackville-West, The Edwardians, London: Virago, 2003, pp.349, ISBN 0860683591

More on Vita Sackville-West
More on the novella
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More on short stories

The Enchanter

December 23, 2015 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, critical commentary, plot, and study resources

The Enchanter (1939) was one of the last works Vladimir Nabokov wrote in Russian, using his original pen name of V. Sirin. It was composed in Paris, at a time when he had just started to create works in English – the third of his childhood languages (the two others being his native Russian, and French which was the lingua franca of the Russian aristocracy). Following his arrival in America the manuscript appeared to have been lost, but it surfaced again in 1959 and was first published in English translation in 1987, ten years after the author’s death.

Because of the sensational publication of Lolita in 1955 and the scandal that ensued, The Enchanter was very obviously ripe for its own commercial success, since it dealt with the same subject – the obsession of a middle-aged man for a young girl. Yet strangely, the novella has never generated nearly as much interest with the reading public – even amongst Nabokov specialists.

The Enchanter – critical commentary

Form

Unusually for Nabokov, there is no effort made to locate the events of the story either temporally or geographically. – and none of the characters are given names, although there is a possibility (discussed by his son and translator Dmitri Nabokov in an afterward) that the protagonist’s name at one time might have been Arthur.

In terms of genre, the narrative is too long to be classified as a short story, and too short to be a novel. But the fact that its subject is concentrated so powerfully on one character and his obsession means it might justly be considered a novella.

It has the classical unities of time, place, character, and action to warrant this classification. The story is entirely concerned with the protagonist’s obsession. The other characters, even the woman he marries and the daughter he abducts, are of secondary importance. The events take place in one location, they are orchestrated in once continuous movement, and their outcome culminates in the protagonist’s tragic downfall.

Nabokov and paedophilia

In recent years, careful scrutiny of Nabokov’s work as a whole has revealed that the subject of paedophilia has been a recurring feature of his novels, from earliest to last. Consequently, there has been an embarrassed effort by some critics and editors to downplay and obfuscate the issue of a distinguished writer who had such an apparently unhealthy interest in the seduction of young girls.

For instance, the contents of this slim volume come heavily protected by double ‘explanatory’ prefaces from Nabokov himself and an afterward and running commentary by his son and translator Dmitri Nabokov. Both of these additions to the text seek to deflect attention from the uncomfortable subject of paedophilia towards the genesis and aesthetic details of the work itself.

In an afterward to Lolita (written in 1956) Nabokov claimed that the idea for its main subject had come to him from a newspaper report of a drawing produced by an ape in the Jardin des Plantes. The drawing showed the bars of its cage, the implication being that the poor beast was imprisoned both literally and metaphorically.

The protagonist of Lolita, Humbert Humbert, is a character who produces a written account of his seduction of a young girl who is his step-daughter, and his murder of a rival who also abducts and seduces her. Humbert’s written deposition (the novel) is produced from his prison cell whilst awaiting trial.

This round-about appeal to our sympathy deflects attention from two uncomfortable facts. The first is that Humbert Humbert, is not imprisoned by his obsession for under-age girls: he acts fully conscious of his desires with the free will of an adult.

The second fact is that Nabokov had been writing about older men having sexual encounters with under-age girls ever since his earliest works – such as A Nursery Tale (1926) and <Laughter in the Dark (1932). Moreover, he had already written The Enchanter (1939) which was based on that theme, and he was still including mention of what we would now class as paedophilia in works as late as Ada or Ardor (1969) and Transparent Things (1972).

Neither The Enchanter nor Lolita are isolated examples of this theme: they are merely the most explicit and fully developed examples of a topic to which Nabokov returned again and again in his work.

The Enchanter and Lolita

There is no escaping the fact that the plots of Lolita and The Enchanter are virtually identical. A middle-aged man is obsessed by young girls of a certain age – generally around twelve years old. In order to secure access to one such girl, the man marries her widowed mother and then plans to kill her. When the mother unexpectedly dies, he takes the young girl away by car to a hotel where he plans to seduce her.

Lolita herself is a far more fully developed character than the un-named girl in The Enchanter. She is more fully described and dramatised, with a quite witty line in teenage American slang.

But if The Enchanter had been published around the time it was written, Nabokov might well have been accused of self-plagiarism when Lolita appeared. It is Nabokov’s good fortune (or his skilful management of his own literary reputation) that the manuscript of The Enchanter did not emerge until three decades after the work which established his worldwide fame – and after his death in 1977.

Point of view

The whole of The Enchanter is related from the protagonist’s point of view. In fact the tale starts in first person singular narrative mode, documenting his turbulent thoughts as he tries to justify his aberrant cravings to himself:

This cannot be lechery. Coarse carnality is omnivorous; the subtle kind presupposes eventual satiation. So what if I did have five or six normal affairs—how can one compare their insipid randomness with my unique flame?

But after a few pages the narrative switches to a conventional third person mode – which is worth noting for two reasons. The first reason is technical. The story must be delivered by someone other than the protagonist if he is to die at the end of the story. (In the case of Lolita Humbert Humbert’s account of events is written whilst waiting for his trial in jail, where he dies.)

Nabokov, presenting the story in third person narrative mode, expresses the protagonist’s desires in a very sympathetic manner = almost as if they are a burden imposed upon him by forces outside himself.

having, by the age of forty, tormented himself sufficiently with his fruitless self-immolation

The protagonist’s thoughts and actions are dressed up in all the elaborate and metaphorical imagery for which Nabokov is famous, as if he wishes to obscure and intellectualise his protagonist’s desire – almost as if as an author he does not wish to address his subject directly.

The second noteworthy reason is one of persuasion. It is interesting that the articulation of the protagonist’s thoughts in the first few pages and the presentation of his acts in the remainder of the text are recounted in a remarkably similar literary style. And the style is one that regular readers of Nabokov will instantly recognise: it is the witty, elegant, and very sophisticated ‘literary’ prose he uses in most of his other works:

At daybreak he drowsily laid down his book like a dead fish folding its fin, and suddenly began berating himself: why, he demanded, did you succumb to the doldrums of despair, why didn’t you try to get a proper conversation going, and then make friends with the knitter, chocolate woman, governess, or whatever; and he pictured a jovial gentleman (whose internal organs only, for the moment, resembled his own) who could thus gain the opportunity—thanks to that very joviality— to collect you-naughty-little-girl-you onto his lap.

The reader is given every encouragement to identify and sympathise with the protagonist – which creates a moral and aesthetic problem that few people have been able to resolve in Nabokov’s work. His supporters have concentrated on the skill of his literary invention and his glossy poetic style; his detractors have pointed to his apparent lack of concern for the victims of the outrages perpetrated by his protagonists.

The Enchanter – study resources

The Enchanter – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Enchanter – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

The Enchanter: An Adventure in the Land of Nabokov – Amazon UK

The Enchanter: An Adventure in the Land of Nabokov – Amazon US

The Annotated Lolita – notes & explanations – Amazon UK

The Annotated Lolita – notes & explanations – Amazon US

The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov Amazon UK

Zembla – the official Nabokov web site

The Paris Review – Interview with Vladimir Nabokov

First editions in English – Bob Nelson’s collection

Vladimir Nabokov at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Vladimir Nabokov at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study materials

The Enchanter – plot summary

A forty year old man tries to justify his passion for young girls. His fervid thoughts swirl around memories of some earlier instances of attraction in his life.

He sees a pretty young girl roller-skating in a park, then goes back the next day to befriend the old lady who is looking after her. Following this, he arranges to visit the girl’s widowed and invalid mother on the pretext of buying some furniture.

He visits again, and they exchange information about each other – she her medical problems, he his wealth and prosperity. Despite her warnings that she might not have long to live, he eventually proposes to her.

He wants to keep the girl at home, but the mother insists on peace and quiet; she insists that the girl live with friends. On their wedding night he cannot face their nuptials, and walks the streets, planning to poison her. But he gets through the occasion, after which she reverts to being a full time invalid.

In the months that follow, her health deteriorates and she is hospitalised. He receives news that an operation has been successful, and feels outraged and disappointed. But she does die, and he makes preparations to take the girl away.

He plans to escape with her into a world of permanent sexual indulgence shielded from any influences of everyday life. He has rhapsodic visions of a love life between them which will grow with time – so long as she is not distracted by contact with other people.

He collects the girl from her minder and they go off in a chauffeur driven car, staying overnight at a hotel. After some delays with the management, he joins her in bed and explores her body whilst she is asleep.

Overcome by his desire for her, he abandons all his plans of caution and restraint, and begins to molest her. But she wakes up and screams, and this disturbance awakens other people in the hotel. He panics, escapes into the street, where he is run over and killed by a passing truck.

Vladimir Nabokov, The Enchanter, London: Penguin Classics, 2009, pp.96, ISBN: 014119118X

Vladimir Nabokov – web links

Vladimir Nabokov at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, tutorials, study guides, videos, web links, and essays on the Complete Short Stories.

Vladimir Nabokov at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, list of major works, bibliography, and web links

Lolita USA
A ‘geographical scrutiny’ of Humbert and Lolita’s journey across America. Essay and photographic study by Dieter E. Zimmer.

Vladimir Nabokov Writings – First Appearance
An illustrated collection of first editions in English. Photographs with bibliographical notes compiled by Bob Nelson

Vladimir Nabokov at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, plot, box office, trivia, continuity errors, and quiz.

Zembla
Biography, timeline, photographs, eTexts, sound clips, butterflies, literary criticism, online journal, scholarly essays, and an online annotated version of Ada – housed at Pennsylvania State University Library.

Nabokov Museum
A major collection housed in Nabokov’s old family home (now a museum) in St. Petersburg. – biography, photos, family home, videos in English and Russian.

The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov held the unique distinction of being one of the most important writers of the twentieth century in two separate languages, Russian and English. This volume offers a concise and informative introduction into the author’s fascinating creative world. Specially commissioned essays by distinguished scholars illuminate numerous facets of the writer’s legacy, from his early contributions as a poet and short-story writer to his dazzling achievements as one of the most original novelists of the twentieth century. Topics receiving fresh coverage include Nabokov’s narrative strategies, the evolution of his world-view, and his relationship to the literary and cultural currents of his day. The volume also contains valuable supplementary material such as a chronology of the writer’s life and a guide to further critical reading. Buy the book here

More on Vladimir Nabokov
More on literary studies
Nabokov’s Complete Short Stories

The End of the Tether

August 24, 2013 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and further reading

The End of the Tether was written in 1902 and collected in Youth, a Narrative and Two Other Stories, published by William Blackwood in 1902. The other stories in the trio were Youth and Heart of Darkness.

The End of the Tether – critical commentary

Story – Tale – Novella – Novel?

This narrative is too long, complex, and rich in dramatic incident to be considered a story in the modern sense of that term. Not that Conrad generally considered his shorter fictions stories: he used the tern tales to describe them. And The End of the Tether might be considered a tale – except that the term tale as a literary category is elastic and ill-defined. It can be used for any sort of shapeless narrative that falls short of a full length novel.

The End of the Tether could almost be classified as a short novel. It has a central, fully-rounded protagonist in Captain Whalley, and the secondary characters of Massy, Sterne, and Van Wyk are all fully developed with convincing psychological motivations firmly anchored to the plot.

But it seems to me that the concentration of the main theme (money) and the dramatic unity of events lends the narrative to be classified as a novella. There are no decorative or superfluous passages here. Every event is strongly related to the overall effect.

It’s true that there is no central image or symbol – unless it is the Sofala itself. It is owned by one man (Massy) who has financial problems of his own making, and it is captained by another (Whalley) who also has financial problems – caused partly by the international capitalist banking system, and partly by his obsessive desire to provide for his daughter.

The ship has faulty boilers which should have been replaced by its owner (but he has gambled away his money); the crew are a dubious collection of individuals, and one of them (a drunk) correctly predicts that the ship will be deliberately shipwrecked for the sake of the insurance money.

So the tragic hero figure (Whalley) is firmly related to the central symbol of the novella – a doomed ship which is on its last voyage. It is therefore entirely fitting in terms of the demands of dramatic unity that Whalley goes down with the ship.

The tragic hero

Whalley is a tragic hero in the classical sense that the very characteristics which make him noble and heroic – his desire to finance and protect his own daughter – are the very things that bring about his downfall. And he falls from a great height – the former captain of famous ships, with a fortune and with an island and a nautical passage named after him.

Whalley struggles to maintain his sense of honour and does the right thing for the ship and what he feels is an obligation to support his daughter – whilst he is yoked to an unscrupulous villain, a moral shirker, and a desperate antagonist who has one advantage over him: he can see what he is doing.

The main theme

Despite its setting as a maritime tale (like so many of Conrad’s other works) the essential theme of this piece is money.

Whalley has amassed a fortune through hard work and honest dealing – but it is largely swallowed up by the collapse of a bank.

He had not been alone to believe in the stability of the Banking Corporation. Men whose judgement in matters of finance was as expert as his seamanship had commended the prudence of his investments, and had themselves lost much money in the great failure.

After selling the Fair Maid he is left with a lump sum of £500 and £200 for his daughter’s dubious investment in the Australian lodging house. He is quite prudent with the £500, and ties it into the agreement with Massy for a fixed period, with strong protection clauses. But it does tie him to co-operation with a villain.

Massy on the other hand is entirely motivated by dreams of easy wealth. Having won the lottery once, he has become addicted to gambling, and his greed is such that he cannot believe that Whalley hasn’t got more than the £500. Massy wants to exhort more money from him – not to promote their business ventures, but to fuel his gambling lust.

He is prepared to shipwreck the Sofala in order to claim the insurance (as its owner) and Whalley (as its captain) is eventually prepared to go down with his ship because he cannot face his incipient blindness, which deprives him of the very skill that made his fortune in the first place.

Conrad deploys a bitterly ironic twist when Captain Whalley puts into the pockets of his own jacket the very pieces of scrap iron Massy has used to deflect the ship’s compass. Whalley knows that it is possible for bodies to resurface from the maelstrom of a sinking ship, and he does not want to survive his own watery grave.

The End of the Tether – study resources

The End of the Tether – Collector’s Library – Amazon UK

The End of the Tether – Collector’s Library – Amazon US

The End of the Tether – Kindle eBook

The End of the Tether – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The End of the Tether – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

The End of the Tether – Aeterna Editions – Amazon UK

The End of the Tether – Aeterna Editions – Amazon US

The End of the Tether – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

The End of the Tether – plot summary

Part I. Henry Whalley is captain in charge of the Sofala which makes regular trade journeys on a fixed route in the Malay archipelago. He has previously been captain of a much bigger ship, the Condor, has made famous voyages, and has been fifty years at sea, with an honourable record. But he has lost most of his money in a banking crash.

Part II. Having married off his daughter, he retired with his own ship the Fair Maid. He is much given to reminiscence about his wife (now dead) who he regarded as a shipmate. He has given his daughter a large sum of money on her marriage to a man he thinks an unsuitable choice of husband.

He is planning what he will leave to her and her children when the bank wipes out his fortune. He realises that he will have to earn a living with the Fair Maid. But he discovers that all his old business contacts in the shipping world have gone – replaced by younger people he doesn`t know. Then his son-in-law becomes a wheel-chair invalid.

Whalley cuts back on his own personal expenditure in order to send money to his daughter, but then she asks him to send her £200 to become the landlady of a boarding hose – and he doesn`t have the money.

Part III. Whalley sells the Fair Maid, after which he has £500 to invest and £200 to send to his daughter. He moves into a cheap hotel and feels both homeless and bereft.He has spent all his life in command of ships, and now feels he has nothing. He also thinks that his daughter Ivy being landlady of a boarding house is a slur on his family`s reputation.

Part IV. He wonders what employment he might secure, and fears the consequences of breaking into his £500 life savings. On meeting a government official he thinks back to his earliest days in the port when it was quite undeveloped.

Part V. He meets Captain Elliot, master-attendant of the port who brags about his government connections and complains that having three daughters is a drain on his prospects. Elliot then reveals that the Sofala is looking for a captain. It is owned by George Massy its current engineer, who bought it with winnings from the Manilla lottery. It is currently losing trade, and Massy is spending all his money gambling. Elliot suggests that the only solution would be for Massy to locate a partner who could buy into the business.

Part VI. Whalley invests his £500 in the Sofala for three years and a sixth part of the profits, with a stipulation that if anything happens the money is paid back entirely to Ivy within three months. The narrative then rejoins the opening of the story as the Sofala approaches Batu Bera, and Whalley`s agreement (almost three years old) has six weeks left to run.

Part VII. Massy is a cantankerous owner who thinks everybody else is a fool and beneath his contempt. He bitterly resents Whalley being the ship’s captain. The second mate Jack is a drunken loner whose occasional binges result in imprecations for all members of the Sofala crew past and present with the exception of Massy.

Part VIII. Whalley concentrates on the difficulty of getting the ship across the bar near their destination – and does so with very little depth to spare. Massy threatens to sack Whalley for incompetence. Massy has included a dismissal clause in their agreement for intemperance, and has been aggrieved to discover that Whalley does not drink at all. He also believes that Whalley must have lots more money and wants him to invest more in their joint venture.

Part IX. The ambitious and sneaky chief mate Sterne tries to get promotion from Massy by criticising Whalley. Sterne has been on the Sofala hoping to profit from what seems to him an odd state of affairs. Then when the ship is being navigated through an archipelago, he makes what he believes is an important discovery from which he might profit.

Part X. He arrives at his discovery via his peevish contemplation of Whalley and his loyal henchman, the native Serang – likening them to a whale and its pilot fish. Sterne thinks Whalley is perpetrating a giant fraud, motivated by greed, He thinks the Serang is secretly in charge and that Whalley is losing his sight. Sterne thinks it is time to act, but isnt sure what to do and cannot trust anyone else.

Part XI. Sterne confronts Massy and asks for the job of master of the Sofala. Massy is eaten up by his obsession with lottery numbers, buying tickets for which has brought about his financial downfall. He even resents the wages he has to pay his own crew. Most of all he resents Whalley and their agreement. The ship finally docks at Batu Bera and is met on shore by Mr Van Wyk.

Part XII. Former sailor Van Wyk has established a thriving tobacco plantation- but he relies on regular visits from the Sofala for news and supplies, including his mail. Because the ship is late, Van Wyk blames Massy, and Whalley goes to dinner at Van Wyk’s house, hoping to placate him. Over the years the two naval men have got on well together: Whalley sees improvements everywhere, whereas Van Wyk is slightly more sceptical. Despite these differences, the two men are good friends.

Part XIII. Sterne has attempted to poison Van Wyk’s mind against Whalley, hoping he will be sacked fromthe ship, leaving him to take over its captaincy. But Van Wyk thinks Sterne is a sneak and a trouble-maker. Over dinner, Whalley reveals to Van Wyk that he is going blind. He has been concealing the fact for the sake of the money he is going to send to his daughter.

Hoping to head off Sterne and protect his friend Whalley, Van Wyk visits the Sofala and suggests to Sterne that he might advance a loan and join Whalley for the ship’s last trip under the agreement. Massy stays on board thinking about winning lottery numbers and listening to the second mate’s drunken ramblings as he predicts that Massy will sink the old ship to collect the insurance money.

Part XIV. Massy harasses Whalley again to extend their partnership. He cannot believe that Whalley hasn’t got more money than £500. Massy is motivated entirely by a desire for easy welth and even plans to gamble on the lottery with a winning number that has come to him in a dream. Whalley meanwhile worries about getting the £500 to his daughter.

Massy plans a shipwreck and plants scrap iron in his coat next to the ship’s compass during a night watch. Whalley discovers the coat just as the ship strikes a reef. The crew escape in lifeboats. Feeling he has lost everything, Whalley transfers the scrap iron into his own coat and goes down with the ship.

At the following inquest no blame is attached to Whalley. Massy goes off with the insurance money to gamble in Manilla, and Ivy receives a letter confirming that her father is dead.