Irony and parody as a source of meanings in Nabokov's novel Pale Fire

The novel Pale Fire consists of four part and the poem Pale Fire – preceded by a publisher's preface – can be considered the original textual basis. The poem itself is followed by a critical commentary with notes several times larger than the poem itself, and at the end of the index. Undisputed author of all four parts is Vladimir Nabokov. A distinct contradiction between the text of the poem and its allegedly critical commentary is the main structural problem of the novel. Another source of the tension is the bifurcation of artistic reality between the original image or source of light against the mere reflection and shadow. The narrative of the multifaceted unreliable narrator (whose subjective version of events can distort, mask and hide information) creates a double basis for the novel. The opposing narrative masks are the source of novel's irony and parody, thus the text ambiguity further multiplied and significantly enriched. The result is not only ambiguity, but a wide space between "yes" and "no" is filled. The result of novel's ambivalence is the current validity of "yes" and "no". Double aesthetics of the novel raises the idea that behind the primary text there is another text that the reader must look for and "read" in another way than the original text.