THE COMPLICATED PERSONALITY RESULTED WITH
DEATH IN NABOKOV'S LUZHIN DEFENSE
Faruk Kalay
Vladimir Nabokov is one of the distinctive writers in both Russian and
American Literature. Influencing a great number of authors, Nabokov pens many a
novel dealing with obsessed characters, some of whom regard the death as a final
solution. Luzhin Defense can be considered in one of these kinds of novels
mentioned above. The novel also possesses autobiographical and psychoanalytic
characteristics, which attracts the readers' attention. Alexandr Ivanovich Luzhin,
the protagonist of the novel, spends all his whole life to chess and chess problems;
besides, he has an introvert personality, which makes him snarl in communication
with family, friends and even his wife. The critic depicts the protagonist as "a chess
prodigy who can barely navigate his way through the daily physical world, much
less cope with the people who live in it"1On the day her wife gives a party for the
honorary of him, he suicides. Nabokov ends the novel with these sentences.
"Aleksandr Ivanovich, Aleksandr Ivanovich,' roared several voices. But there was
no Aleksandr Ivanovich"2. Luzhin who cannot confront with the physical world
prefers death to life. In this study, the protagonist's complex personality and his life
resulted with death will be argued.
Key Words: Complicated Personality, Death, A. I. Luzhin, Defense, Vladimir
Nabokov
1. INTRODUCTION
Vladimir Vladimiroviç Nabokov is one of the prominent authors influencing
the world literature. Concerning about a great number of themes, Nabokov uses the
subjects of death and suicide in especially his previous novels written in Russia.
His fourth novel The Luzhin Defense, which "is really with this book that his 'life'
begins"3 is regarded as his best Russian novel concerning about a chess master
Alexandr Ivanovich Luzhin whose mental problems lead him suicide. Nabokov
depicts the protagonist as "a champion chess player who goes mad when chess
combinations pervade the actual pattern of his existence."4 Dembo encapsulates the
novel with a few words: "hypersensitive vision and the insanity or suicide in which
it culminates"5 Being lonesome and introvert protagonist, Luzhin regards the daily
activities more complicated than the most complex chess problems. After some
processes, he is completely isolated from his wife and milieu. Observing his mental
process, the reader clearly deems his psychological diseases such as obsessive
compulsive neurosis, psychoanalytic conditions and avoidant disorder. In the
further section, these mental ailments and their conclusions resulted with suicide
will be argued.
The Complicated Personality Resulted With Death in Nabokov's Luzhin Defense
2. THE FAMILY FACTOR
First of all, it must be indicated that Luzhin's family is the most important
factors shaping his characterization and grown-up. The possession of a father
whose expectancy is much more than his capacity and a mother beleaguered with
attachment. His nursemaid is also a problematic figure depicted in the novel. In
this context, when observed in terms of the characteristics of psychoanalyses, the
main reason why the protagonist has some of the mental illnesses can be clearly
seen.
His father's characteristic is very important element for better understanding
which forms his morality and characterization. The father who has anticipatory
dreams for Luzhin timid and bashful emerges as an imbroglio. Writing children
books, father Luzhin creates a prototype figures such as " the image of a fair-haired
lad, 'headstrong,' 'brooding,' who later turned into a violinist or a painter, without
losing his moral beauty in the process."6 It is, furthermore, a pitiable for a child
having this kind of father with regards to both his physical and psychological
development. The lack of his father's approve causes the deficiency of selfconfidence. On the other hand, "the only person in whose presence he did not feel
constrained" is his aunt committing adultery with Luzhin's father. To make an
illustration; "His father's death did not interrupt his work." 7One of the reasons why
he does not like his father may as well be this relationship. In psychoanalytic
theory, it can be identified with Oedipus complex. The protagonist's disconnection
with the parents engenders inclination of alienation and creation an inner world.
What's more, his mother is again a problematic figure who cannot signify her
true feeling towards others. She has also the paranoiac behaviours sometimes,
which deeply affects the protagonist's characterization. For example, "while his
mother gasped as if deprived of her tongue and then began to laugh unnaturally and
hysterically, with wails and cries"8. Moreover, after finding out her husband's
infidelity with her own sister, his mother abruptly refrains from taking interest in
her own child. The mother's statement substantiates this idea: 'He cheats,' she kept
repeating, 'just as you cheat. I'm surrounded by cheats' 9. In this sense, Luzhin can
be regarded as an unlucky boy whose parents are not normal and have mental
problems.
Nabokov gives little information about Luzhin's nursemaid. She is depicted as
inconspicuous figure for Luzhin. The impotence of inner equilibrium makes her a
little unbalanced. For instance, "she herself take the bull by the horns, though this
bull inspired mortal fear in her."10 Also, even though the ambiance in the house is
gloomy and silent, Luzhin prefers the time when nobody speaks and tells him what
to do. "This was, and now it was especially pleasant: a strange silence in the house
and a kind of expectation of something." 11 He lives in a problematic family which
absolutely shapes his characterization. The critic purports that Luzhin "inhabits a
closed, claustrophobic world with almost none of Ganin's sense of an expansive
future." 12 Hence, it can be concluded that Nabokov draws the readers' attention to
Faruk KALAY
the protagonist's family by giving the details and emphasizes the source of his
mental ailments.
3. COMPLICATED PERSONALITY
Although few critics give much attention to the novel, it is very distinctive one
indicating a character who has a very complicated characterization depending upon
the psychology. As one of the critics identifies the novel as "the story of a chess
(Wunderkind and monomaniac)."13 Being both genius and maniac, Luzhin shows
the indications of many psychological diseases. From the beginning of his child to
his suicide, he has so symptoms that all readers not knowing much about the
psychology or psychiatry are able to understand that he owns mental problems. In
fact, the writers choose the idea of madness many times because of its popularity.
As the critic states;
Madness has always fascinated writers and has a privileged
relationship with literature, being sometimes more than a mere metaphor
and rather corresponding to a thematic network underlying a text. It has
even been compared to the reading and/or writing activity of literature 14
Luzhin's childhood is very prominent for readers to understand his mental
problems before dealing with his complicated personality. Accompanying with
nobody can be counted as the first symptom in his characterization. As his
schoolmaster states: "the boy seemed not to get on with his companions, that the
boy did not run about much during the recess period"15. The deficiency of
communication leads him alienation and possession a kind of personality trapped
in his inner world. The critic delineates the protagonist "who manages his career as
a precocious chess genius but prohibits any normal human contacts as a drain on
his energy."16 In this sense, this problem is primarily considered as the main issue
in Luzhin's life.
Another important problem recounted by Nabokov is dissimulation. His family
and even the reader cannot understand well what the protagonist thinks or how he
feels. There are a great numbers of exemplifications in the novel. For example
Nabokov repeatedly recounts the protagonist's never crying such as "'Now he's
going to cry.' But Luzhin never once cried"17 or "did not break into tears and
instead buried his face in the pillow, making bursting sounds with his lips into it" 18.
His childhood is an indication of his mental situation and a hint for his pitiful end.
On the other hand, "the full horror of the change"19 is also a prominent issue for
the protagonist. Moving to another place or changing his habits is more difficult
and complicated circumstance than an ordinary child. The novel "which began by
stressing Luzhin's basic inability to welcome the future"20 demonstrates a
problematical figure who have no courage to cope with unexceptional daily
problems. To make an exemplification, when Luzhin finds out they move from the
country to the city where it is not far from, Nabokov recounts the instant as "when
The Complicated Personality Resulted With Death in Nabokov's Luzhin Defense
the whole world suddenly went dark, as if someone had thrown a switch."21 The
writer reflects the fear of alteration in the eyes of Luzhin.
One the one hand, one of the most important psychological problems indicated
in Defense is the symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder. The inventory of
goods and attitudes is a characteristic of the protagonist. For instance Nabokov
juxtaposes the incidences of counting in the novel: "In this way he sat through
approximately two hundred and fifty long intermissions"22 and in addition to this,
"A goose advanced on a pup and so on thirty-eight times around the entire room." 23
The main reason why he behaves like that is the fact that he regards the life as a
chess board. Every movement in life is a kind of a chess move according to the
protagonist as Stonehill purports in his article;
Thus Luzhin, the artistic chess genius of The Defense, makes his
leap from a simulacrum of this world to one of infinite, eternal chess,
upon realizing that the apparent events of his life have in fact been chess
moves in a game played against an incomparably grander master than
he.24
On the other hand, the inclination of playing chess becomes an obsession for
the protagonist. The concealment behind the chess against struggle for life is his
escape. The chess board symbolizes the world he lives in. However, Ivask alleges
that his vision is "very limited - by a chessboard."25 His narrow-mindedness
becomes the source of his mental problems which takes him to the death at the end.
The protagonist whose entire life turns into chess is an impuissant character to
realize the daily activities. When Dembo encapsulates the title of the novel, he
deals with the situation of play; "It is against the play of this invisible opponent
(fate) that Luzhin attempts to work out a 'defense.'" 26 In this context, Luzhin
endeavouring to express his superiority loses his mentality.
Furthermore, the circle of chess he lives is so huge that it is able to take the real
world in it according to the protagonist. "The world around him as a gigantic
chessgame threatening to destroy him"27 becomes his absolute enemy. The critic
states that "Luzhin has so saturated his mind with chess that he sees his whole life
in its terms."28 The protagonist takes the obsession of chess further by imagining
the real world as a chess board. Stonehill states that Luzhin regards all daily
activities as a rival who plays against:
The great advantage of the ideal chess world over the "real" world
from which Luzhin flees in The Defense is that the chess world is one of
carefully defined rules and orderly systems of play. (1988: 108)
Not only does Luzhin show indications of obsessive compulsive disorder such
as the servitude of chess and counting but also he has a great number of paranoiac
behaviours emphasized in the novel. The critics dealing with the novel underlines
this circumstance which Nabokov draws in his novel. "a melancholy
Faruk KALAY
amusement"29is the only one of the examples given in the novel. In fact almost all
behaviours are not normal. As Burns purports, the former novels written by
Nabokov has the same characteristics: "as in The Defense, Nabokov's characters
collapse into paranoia just at the moment when the reader realizes the metafictive
twist in the story."30 In this sense, Luzhin is identified as a paranormal figure
Being himself subjected to auditory and visual hallucinations,
Nabokov staged many characters tempted by madness. Thus, the
protagonist Luzhin who is a chess player in The Luzhin Defense is the
prey of a monomaniac passion which ends in a suicide.31
4. CONCLUSION:
For these reasons, it can be concluded that Nabokov brilliantly depicts a
protagonist whose mentality has no capacity of survive in daily life. Having shown
many indications of mental illnesses, Luzhin is stuck in a chessboard which
regards as real world. In fact, the only thing overcoming him is a chess game
against Italian Turati who makes an unexpected move. As Sale points out,
Nabokov "created a character great enough that he could only be ruined in a switch
from the life of chess to the chess of life" 32. From this point of view, it provides
only one part. On the other hand, his mentality naturally drifts him to death. When
Chmeley summarizes the novel, he concludes his sentence with a word of
extraordinary implying death. He states;
Luzhin, the hero of the novel, becomes a victim of his genius in the
very blossom of his maturity. He overstrained his nerves in his fight for
the chess world championship because of an isolation from normal human
life since his very childhood. Long years spent at the chessboard and
mental chess exercises filled his head with a vision which blurs his family
life with fog and distorts his mind. Having neither spiritual background
nor training to fight it in a logical way he decides to do something
extraordinary:(Chmelev, 1965: 218)
However, Nabokov states the characters he creates, in fact, represent his inner
world and they are fighting against the real world. Struve purports "Nabokov
himself said in his autobiographyth at all conflicts in literature are clashes not
between characters but between the author and the world."33 In this context, the
reader can claim that he reads Nabokov instead of the protagonist Luzhin. He also
understands the author better.
In this respect, Luzhin is a victim of his genius and love of playing chess. He
possesses all psychological problems leading him suicide. Nabokov really manages
to author an excellent descriptive novel depicting such a chess genius. It also
deserves the best novel authored in Russian language by Nabokov.
The Complicated Personality Resulted With Death in Nabokov's Luzhin Defense
NOTES:
1 Rasoir, J. "Characters as Chess Pieces: Nabokov and The Luzhin Defense" Access Date: 08.07.2012
http://www.317am.net/2012/03/characters-as-chess-pieces-nabokov-and-the-luzhin-defense.html 2012
2 Vladimir N. Luzhin Savunması (Luzhin Defense) 228 İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları:2010
3 (Reeve, F. D. "King of the Butterflies Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years and The American Years by Brian
Boyd" The Sewanee Review 100/3 495 1992
4 Nabokov Konuş Hafıza (Speak Memory) 217 İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları 2011
5 Dembo, "Vladimir Nabokov, an Introduction" 114 (Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature 8/2) 1967:
6 (Nabokov, 22, 2010:
7 Ibid, 87
8 Ibid, 46
9 Ibid, 47
10 Ibid, 14
11 Ibid, 39
12 Foster, J. B. Nabokov's Art of Memory and European Modernism 63 (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
1993
13 Struve, "Double Life of Russian Literature" 403 (Books Abroad 28/4) 1954
14 Hamrit, J "The Silence of Madness in "signs and Symbols" by Vladimir Nabokov" PSYART (Acc.Date:
09.06.2012) http://www.psyartjournal.com/article/ show/hamrit the_silence_of_madness_in_ signs_and_symb
2006
15 Nabokov, 24
16 Foster, 66
17 Nabokov, 26
18 Ibid, 15
19 Ibid, 18
20 Foster, 64
21 Nabokov, 34
22 Ibid, 25
23 Ibid v, 28
24 Stonehill, B. The Self-Conscious Novel: Artifice in Fiction from Joyce to Pynchon 86 (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press) 1988
25 Ivask, G. "The World of Vladimir Nabokov" 137 (Russian Review 20/2) 1961
26 Dembo, 115
27 Couturier, M. "Yours Faithfully, the Author" Marc Chénetier (ed.) Critical Angles: European Views of
Contemporary American Literature 35 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press) 1986
28 Gibbs Jr., R. W. "Metaphor as a Constraint on Text Understanding" Arthur C. Graesser, Bruce K. Britton
(Eds.) Models of Understanding Text 215 (Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates) 1996
29 Nabokov, 20
30 Burns, C. L. "The Art of Conspiracy: Punning and Paranoid Response in Nabokov's 'Pnin." Mosaic 28/1
(Acc. Date 09.06.2006) http://www.questia.com /PM.qst?a=o&d=5001647137 1995
31 Hamrit, 2006
32 Sale, R. "Provincial Champions and Grandmasters" 612 (The Hudson Review 17/4) 1964
33 Struve, G. ). "Notes on Nabokov as a Russian Writer" 156 (Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature
8/2) 1967
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