The Absence of Justice in Nabokov's Pale Fire

Previous readings of Pale Fire overlook a crucial fact: its plot, structure, and narration depend upon the removal of a single character from the action. Judge Goldsworth's absence implies that justice cannot be attained within a text that, like other Nabokov novels, emphasizes the law. Kinbote's assertion of control over Shade's poem establishes estate law, contract law, and copyright law as interpretive contexts for Pale Fire, while questions about intellectual property lead to analogies with property law. Allusions to rules regulating neighbors' or tenants' liability—including stillicide and damnum infectum—point, in turn, to Goldsworth, Shade's neighbor and Kinbote's landlord. Nabokov's depiction of this missing character reflects his knowledge of the law school at Cornell; Hugh Warren Goldsworth's first and middle names suggest Charles Evans Hughes, a former Cornell law professor who was Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court when Nabokov arrived in America, and Earl Warren, Chief Justice when he left. Nabokov draws on the legal concept of in camera—in the judge's chambers—to convey not only Goldsworth's physical withdrawal but also the location of his home, the arrangement of his possessions, and his household's organization. Thanks to Goldsworth's sabbatical, Kinbote gains access to Shade and the poem. Indeed, because Goldsworth resembles Shade and their properties are adjacent, the judge's absence leads to Shade's death at the hands of Jack Grey. This tragedy, glimpsed through Kinbote's distorted account, connects themes of property law, injury, displacement, and mistaken identity associated with Goldsworth throughout Pale Fire. Shade's murder demands justice—yet judicial proceedings are forestalled by Grey's suicide and Goldsworth, the novel's only judge, is not only absent but involved in the circumstances precipitating the crime. Despite Kinbote's belief in a divine Judge meting out appropriate rewards and punishments, Pale Fire hints that justice must be determined by Nabokov's readers.