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  • Born April 23, 1899, in Russia.
  • As a boy, he enjoyed devising chess problems, he played with codes and ciphers, and later wrote his own crosswords, they were the first ones to be written in Russia. (randomhouse.com)

Definition: A narrator who cannot be trusted. Either from ignorance or self-interest, this narrator speaks with a bias, makes mistakes, or even lies.

This is a key component of modernism. (Fictionwriting.about.com)

The reader is given several hints pointing to the narrator's unreliabilty.

-The narrator is an unnamed Frenchmen.

The fact that there is not a name given causes the reader to question his credability.

-"And I wish I could recollect that novel or short story (by some contemporary writer, I believe) in which, unknown to its author, the first letters of the words in its last paragraph formed, as deciphered by Cynthia, a message from his dead mother." (Nabokov, p.1519). In this quote, the narrator does not realize that this is the short story he is speakig of. This is another hint dropped to the reader that this narrator is not to be trusted.

-...A complex of what seemed to be some Russian type of architectual woodwork (figures on boards-man, horse, cock, man, horse, cock), all of which was difficult to take down hard to understand, and impossible to verify." (Nabokov, p.1520) This quote illustartes to the reader that the narrator can't identify something as simple as a chess set.

The Vane Sisters

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think that Sybil decided to borrow a pen from a classmate when writing the suicide portion of her term paper?

2. Why do you think that the author has the narrator mention a story where there was a hidden message at the end, but he could not remember which story that was?

3. In the beginning of the story, the narrator is fascinated by these icicles and their shadows. Do you think there is any symbolism to them? Why or why not?

4. In your opinion, why are we as readers not given a name or description of appearance of the narrator?

Unreliable Narrator

Hidden Message

Acrostic: A poem, word puzzle, or other composition in which certain letters in each line form a word or words. (Dictionary.com)

Codes and concealed meanings were central to Nabokov's world view.

"Nabokov felt that the thrill of discovery was one of the highest things life had to offer."(wired.com)

The last paragraph of this story contains one of these messages. "I could isolate, consciously, little. Everything seemed blurred, yellow-clouded, yielding nothing tangible. Her inept acrostics, maudlin evasions, theopathies-every recollection formed ripples of mysterious meaning. Everything seemed yellow blurred, illusive, lost."

So...what does this mean?

This last paragraph is an acrostic. Nabokov says that every writer should try something like this atleast once in his career, although it is difficult to pull off.

Vladimir Nabokov

Works Cited

If the first letter of every word in the last paragraph is isolated, they spell out "Icicles by Cynthia, meter from me, sybil."

In the beginning of the story the narrator has this fascination with the dripping icicles and their shadows. He also tells us that he is in a part of town that is not his usual place to be, it is near the college he used to teach at. Upon leaving a restaraunt, a parking meter catches his eye. "The lean gohost, the elongated umbra cast by a parking meter upon some damp snow, had a strange ruddy tinge..." This is the exact moment where the narrator runs into D., the man Sybil had an affair with.

http://www.mantex.co.uk/2009/09/26/the-vane-sisters/Nabokov, Vladimir. “The Vane Sisters.” 2012. Perspectives on the Short Story. Boston: Pearson, 2012. 1514-1522. Print.Kellman, Steven. “Torpid Smoke: The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov.” P.232. Print.www.Dictionary.com

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-05/pl_print

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/nabokov/biography.html

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