eeting with her beyond the grave,” (Nabokov 415).Statements such as these makes the reader so used to Nina’s death that at the climax of the story when she finally dies, the reader feels no sadness towards this event. There is no tugging at the heartstrings. If there is any emotion present in the reader at the end of the story, it is a feeling of happiness towards Victor. Victor was feeling trapped ever since his first encounter with Nina. He kissed her upon first meeting her. Every subsequent meeting, either Victor, Nina, or both were romantically involved with someone else. His adoration, lust, love, crush, or whatever you want to call it for Nina was never allowed to be realized. Finally Victor, quite pathetically expresses his feelings:“Look here – what if I love you?” Nina glanced at me, I repeated those words, I wanted to add… but something like a bat passed swiftly across her face, a quick, queer, almost ugly expression, and she who would utter coarse words with perfect simplicity, became embarrassed; I also felt awkward….”Never mind, I was only joking.” (Nabokov 429).Once Nina dies, the reader feels an immediate feeling of relief for Victor. He no longer runs the risk of accidentally bumping into her, feeling awkward. His unreturned passions may be finally set aside, neatly folded and safely stored in his cedar chest of memory. Finally able to perfectly align his mental compass to his true north which is his family, which before was “always floating beside me, and even through me, I dare say, but yet keeping on the outside of me most of the time.”Literary critic Douglas Fowler completely overlooks this reason for Nina’s death and instead tries desperately to link it with Ferdinand. He believes that Ferdinand represents invulnerable, plain art and Nina the mortality of life (Fowler 69). “Nina is not a ‘muse,’ she has no culture,...
