Analysis of Brian McHale's Existential Components in Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire

Postmodernist theories are divided into two main groups. The first group includes the theories of people like Barry Lewis and David Lodge who present a list of postmodern style components (uncertainty, paranoia, temporal disorder, etc.). In the second group, the most significant theory has been proposed by Brian McHale, who uses the concept of "dominant element" in Russian formalism to explain postmodernism. McHale considers the characteristic feature of postmodernism to be ontology (as opposed to epistemology, which is the dominant element of modernism). Ontology examines the nature of existence: questions raised in ontology concern existence and beings. In order to answer ontological questions, Cahill believes, the world must be understood first; however, modern works refuse to give a definite answer to this question and make the reader experience a kind of ontological uncertainty. One instance of such categories is the blurring of the real and imaginary worlds in postmodern stories. Benefiting from Brian McHale's theory, this research is looking for ontological components in Nabokov's Pale Fire. Findings indicate that Pale Fire is written in a postmodern style and is a complex and difficult novel whose author is well capable of utilizing his polyphonic technique, uncertainty, temporal and spatial disorder, paranoia, etc.