Free At Last: the Heroic Escape of Timofey Pnin

Comparing endings of several Nabokov’s novels, the article shows Pnin’s final departure as a heroic break from the past similar to those of Martin in Glory and Ganin in Mary. Pnin’s travels are used as a lens to examine the readers’ changing perception of the protagonist and his emergence from a distorted portrait created by Vladimir Vladimirovich, the book’s narrator. Often conflated with the author, Vladimir Vladimirovich unmasks himself as a villain narrator whose ambition is to be taken for Nabokov. Pnin’s final exit is also an escape from the snares of misrepresentation.