THE EYE

With the publication of The Eye in 1930, Nabokov's work embarks upon a new direction. Elaborating on the situation he treated in The Defense, where the central character's obsession with the other was less a matter of desire than of fear, Nabokov explores in The Eye and again in Despair the ways in which creative individuals attempt to cope with their anxiety about the power of others to evaluate or define them. Like certain of Dostoevsky's heroes, Nabokov's protagonists look to others for validation in self-definition, yet they fear others precisely because the others possess this defining power. To utilize a concept Mikhail Bakhtin articulated in reference to Dostoevsky's work, these characters long to retain for themselves “the final word” about themselves and their identities (Problems 43). Nabokov's works in this period resonate with Dostoevskian subtexts. Although Nabokov had grave reservations about the aesthetic qualities of Dostoevsky's art, the latter's early work offers penetrating treatments of psychological situations that now engage Nabokov's own attention.

In “Terror” Nabokov depicted for the first time a character's trepidation when confronted with the abstract notion of “other” as such. The Defense developed this theme further, providing a concentrated view of one man's fear of an abstract, invisible other. With The Eye and Despair Nabokov depicts two related responses to this basic fear.