Psychological traumas surface in Paula Vogel’s portrayal of Li’l Bit and Uncle Peck in How I Learned to Drive (1997). Theorizing Peck’s fixation on Li’l Bit is necessitated by his drive to recapture his innocence—an innocence he lost as a young man during WWII—this thesis will seek to explain how Drive can be viewed as a love story by revealing the motivations behind Li’l Bit’s sympathy for Uncle Peck. Recognizing war trauma as the fundamental catalyst for both the action and the tone of the play situates Drive in a territory not yet explored. Furthermore, this thesis will explore the dubious relationship between war-traumatized veterans and pedophilic tendencies by examining this theme in other literature, particularly, J.D. Salinger’s “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor” (1950) and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), thus, placing Drive at the nexus in which American drama and war literature coalesce.

Nabokov is well known for writing numerous indictments of totalitarian tyranny, most notably Invitation to a Beheading (1935) and Bend Sinister (1947). However, my contention in this thesis is that Nabokov�s most sustained and most significant assault on totalitarian tyranny occurred in 1938. The extent of Nabokov�s response to tyranny in 1938 is not immediately obvious. Some of Nabokov�s work of the year engages in an explicit assault on tyranny; however, in other cases the assault is oblique and in one instance cryptically concealed. In my thesis I examine each of the works of 1938, and set these against the political circumstances of the year, the tense atmosphere on the threshold of World War II. I find that all of the works of 1938, in one manner or another, respond to the political climate of the day; that Nabokov in 1938 made an unparalleled artistic response to tyranny in a uniquely ominous year. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains studies of each of the lesser works of 1938: chapter 5 of The Gift, "Tyrants Destroyed," The Waltz Invention, "The Visit to the Museum," and "Lik." These studies are inset into a chronological survey of the personal and political circumstances of Nabokov�s life in 1938. Part 2 constitutes the most significant aspect of my thesis, an in-depth study of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Nabokov�s main work of 1938. The novel has been regarded as detached from the pre-war climate of the day; however, in an extensive new reading I find that the bright appearance of the novel is only a facade. My reading reveals a triadic, chess-problem-like structure to the novel, where the innocuous surface (the thesis) gives way to a cryptically concealed level of totalitarian themes (the antithesis), before the novel finally emerges onto a notional third level (the synthesis), the novel�s "solution." The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, I contend, represents the heart of Nabokov�s artistic response to tyranny in 1938. Through the triadic unfolding of the novel and the reader�s creative engagement with the text, Nabokov demonstrates that art itself triumphs over tyranny.

Goethe's Faust and Nabokov's Humbert both are erudite, middle-aged European scholars who, experiencing a convergence of academic and existential ennui, set eyes upon a young girl and instantly are consumed with lust. In both works the girls' widowed mothers die as a result of the protagonists' lustful intentions; a cross-country flight ensues; the once-respected scholars are wanted for murder; and Gretchen and Lolita each suffer from their sexual and emotional objectification. But the connections between Goethe's play and Nabokov's novel extend far beyond plot points, or even their decidedly different receptions in early 19th century Germany versus mid-20th century America. Each incorporates thematic elements of temptation, sin, moral versus societal law, and perhaps, most important, damnation versus possible redemption. Combined, these striking thematic and textual similarities raise the compelling argument that Nabokov consciously and deliberately was reworking the Faust legend for a modern American audience. Moreover, this hidden compositional structure to a novel that many have called one of the greatest works of twentieth century American literature was one of Nabokov's most jealously guarded secrets, one he took deliberate measures to ensure never would be uncovered. And until now, that has been the case.Part of the reason may lie in Nabokov's often kaleidoscopic use of Goethe's famous play. In Goethe's version of the legend, for instance, the wager for Faust's soul between the Lord and Mephisto is rendered explicitly in the "Prologue in Heaven" scene. In Lolita, however, this soul-battle is rendered implicitly. Humbert makes repeated references to the dual forces of "God" or "winged gentlemen of the jury," for example, or else to the demonic element personified by what he calls "McFate." At any moment, he fears one or the other may steal from him his life's deepest hunger: to possess a nymphet. Through an examination of both primary and secondary texts, this dissertation connects and illustrates the hidden structure of Goethe's Faust in Nabokov's Lolita. Furthermore, it is argued that this structure allowed Nabokov to rhetorically address issues of deepest concern to him, most notably the future immortality of the human soul.

Vladimir Nabokov's passion for detail is well-known, central to our very idea of the "Nabokovian." Yet Nabokov's most important claims for detail pose a challenge for the reader who would take them seriously. Startlingly extreme and deliberately counterintuitive -- Nabokov called them his "irrational standards" -- these claims push the very limits of reason and belief. Nabokov's critics have tended to treat his more extravagant claims for detail -- including his assertion that the "capacity to wonder at trifles" is the highest form of consciousness there is -- as just a manner of speaking, a form of italics, a bit of wishful thinking, a mandarin's glib performance, or an aesthete's flight of fancy. This dissertation, by contrast, asserts that Nabokov meant what he said, and sets out to understand what he meant. Nabokov's passion for detail, I argue, represents more than a stylistic preference or prescription for good noticing. Rather, it reflects and advocates for a special way of being in the world, of disposing or orienting oneself to things, and for this reason is best understood as part of a broad program of detailphilic habits, attitudes, practices and attunements Nabokov adhered to throughout his life. In making this argument, I draw on the work of a wide array of thinkers, including Descartes, Heidegger, Richard Rorty, Clifford Geertz, and Philip Fisher, and focus on three of Nabokov's texts in particular: Speak, Memory, Lolita, and "The Art of Literature and Commonsense." Making sense of Nabokov's irrational standards, I argue, helps us to make sense of a number of other critical puzzles as well, from what, exactly, Nabokov means by the word "reality" to what a cruel noticer like Humbert Humbert implies about the moral meaning of passionate attention.

Plankwalk is a creative thesis in the form of a novella and critical afterword. The essay explains how the author makes use of a variety of sources, and how he shapes their effect according to an original conception of the form of the contemporary novella. There follows a discussion of this form and its relation to the confessional narratives of Vladimir Nabokov, and to cultural critics' views on the social role of criminals. The author demonstrates how the changing nature of criminality and confession is reflected in the works of de Sade, Poe, and Nabokov. The issues of the handling of irony, paranoia and the relation of crime to work emerge as the key elements. The author posits the fusion of confessional narrative with the literature of genre overdetermination, in which the expectations of genre dominate a character's interiority.

Nabokov is well known for writing numerous indictments of totalitarian tyranny, most notably Invitation to a Beheading (1935) and Bend Sinister (1947). However, my contention in this thesis is that Nabokov�s most sustained and most significant assault on totalitarian tyranny occurred in 1938. The extent of Nabokov�s response to tyranny in 1938 is not immediately obvious. Some of Nabokov�s work of the year engages in an explicit assault on tyranny; however, in other cases the assault is oblique and in one instance cryptically concealed. In my thesis I examine each of the works of 1938, and set these against the political circumstances of the year, the tense atmosphere on the threshold of World War II. I find that all of the works of 1938, in one manner or another, respond to the political climate of the day; that Nabokov in 1938 made an unparalleled artistic response to tyranny in a uniquely ominous year. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains studies of each of the lesser works of 1938: chapter 5 of The Gift, "Tyrants Destroyed," The Waltz Invention, "The Visit to the Museum," and "Lik." These studies are inset into a chronological survey of the personal and political circumstances of Nabokov�s life in 1938. Part 2 constitutes the most significant aspect of my thesis, an in-depth study of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Nabokov�s main work of 1938. The novel has been regarded as detached from the pre-war climate of the day; however, in an extensive new reading I find that the bright appearance of the novel is only a facade. My reading reveals a triadic, chess-problem-like structure to the novel, where the innocuous surface (the thesis) gives way to a cryptically concealed level of totalitarian themes (the antithesis), before the novel finally emerges onto a notional third level (the synthesis), the novel�s "solution." The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, I contend, represents the heart of Nabokov�s artistic response to tyranny in 1938. Through the triadic unfolding of the novel and the reader�s creative engagement with the text, Nabokov demonstrates that art itself triumphs over tyranny.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-59). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Comparative Literature, December 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 204-218). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Also available in print.