Pale Fire

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss suicide and mental health conditions.

“His whole being constituted a mask.”

Kinbote’s foreword is an act of self-defense, in which he launches an invective against anyone who suggests that he was not the most important figure in Shade’s life. Typical of the egotistical Kinbote, every accusation is a confession. He uses a metaphor here to explain to others—including Shade’s wife and colleagues—that only he knew the true John Shade. As evidenced by Kinbote’s notes, however, he is wrong about his influence on Shade’s life. The mask applies more to Kinbote, whose contextualization of the poem becomes an attempt to defend his position as Shade’s most important muse.

“I was the shadow of the waxwing slain.”

The opening line of Shade’s poem is the image of a waxwing bird that has crashed against a window and died. The image haunts Shade as he sees himself in the bird’s fate. The illusion of a fellow bird in the window’s reflection lured the bird to its untimely death. Now, Shade uses a metaphor to call himself the bird’s shadow, both luring others and being lured to a similar end. The opening line of the poem is supposedly also the final line, suggesting the cyclical nature of this philosophical trap.