The “Doubles” in Nabokov’s The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Abstract

The ambiguous identities of the two heroes, V. and Sebastian, in Nabokov’s The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, is of great interest to Nabokovian criticism and scholarship. This paper, in light of theories on the “double”, intents to figure out the problem and reveal Nabokov’s design of Sebastian and V. as “doubles”. In The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Nabokov structures delicate mappings for the doubling relationship between the two heroes. His intricate design of doubles aims to show the dynamic process of Sebastian and V.’s selfdevelopment by erasing the psychic distance between them.