Vladimir Nabokov Writing Styles in Laughter in the Dark

This Study Guide consists of approximately 52 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Laughter in the Dark.

Vladimir Nabokov Writing Styles in Laughter in the Dark

This Study Guide consists of approximately 52 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Laughter in the Dark.
This section contains 1,143 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the Laughter in the Dark Study Guide

Point of View

Vladimir Nabokov narrates Laughter in the Dark from a single, generally objective perspective in the third person past tense. First-person dialog is relatively sparse and not well differentiated by character. Nabokov is privy to characters' thoughts and emotions, and frequently in tense situations intermingles characters' true thought processes with the with the words with which they are fumbling to get out of trouble. The chief character, Albert Albinus, is a well-to-do, middle-aged art critic of marginal intellectual power. Nabokov sounds always slightly superior to him, dashing off the names of painters and their works. He never condones Albert's affair with the grasping teenage femme fatale. Margot Peters, whom he treats rather more harshly and less affectionately that his most famous creation, Lolita in the novel of the same name. Parallels between them are impossible not to notice.

Gentle but highly moralistic brother-in-law Paul is treated with...

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This section contains 1,143 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the Laughter in the Dark Study Guide
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