References and Delusions in Vladimir Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols”

SUZUKI Akira

Vladimir Nabokov’s short story “Signs and Symbols” (1948) is one of the fictional works he wrote with the intention of creating multiple layers in which “the second (main) story is woven into, or placed behind, the superficial semitransparent one.” In this story, although the details of the disorder sufferd by a young man who is incarcerated in a sanitarium and a day’s activity of his parents trying to bring a birthday present to their son are represented, his words and deeds are not directly recorded. Such blanks make it difficult to draw a definitive conclusion. What is suggestive for our interpretation is“ referential mania,” the name given to delusions experienced by the son. The symptom is characteristic in that the patient imagines that everything except human affairs, “everything happening around him” or “phenomenal nature” is “a veiled reference to his personality and existence.” At first sight, the fate of the main characters seems to reflect the common tragedy which is shadowing the destiny endured by the whole humanity since the beginning of the twentieth century. But even if that corresponds to the son’s delusions to some extent, the same sense of despair would not dominate or conclude everything, because the story suggests that it has its own hereafter by implication.