Matt: is it really surprising that in many (most?) cultures the duty of caring for orphans should fall on the nearest available kin of the deceased parent(s)? (Consider the strange, extreme exogamous variant, now rare, of Levirate marriage where a brother-in-law must marry the childless widow! The children of this new union are to be counted as those of the dead husband!!). Before the “Nanny State,” the Aunt would be the most likely candidate.
Novelists developing their dramatis personae make many choices as to age, gender, ancestry, hair- and eye-colour, occupation, height, sexual preferences, ... , some of which are interdependent and relevant to the mooted plot. Others less so. Others possibly arbitrary and spurious* except for reader-scholars with time on their hands ;=) * F’rinstance, some authors feel we must know their characters’ collar, shoe & inner-leg measurements, including price and vendor.
The choice of childhood- and parental-background for key characters is usually plot-relevant, of course, but the basic choices are quite limited! Having decided on “orphanity” for John Shade, Nabokov’s choice of an Aunt as “designated mum” is quite natural. The frequency of this fictional-choice simply reflects its non-fictional popularity! We might ask if and how Pale Fire would be a different masterpiece had VN given Shade (i) long-lived parents (ii) the other favourite device of a wicked step-parent!
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 07/11/2008 18:26, "Matthew Roth" <MRoth@MESSIAH.EDU> wrote:
Thanks to all for the responses below. I had thought of Jane Eyre and Tom Sawyer, but I hadn't thought about David Copperfield, Vashtar, the Wiz of Oz, or Pollyanna. I can now add that Tolstoy himself was an orphan and was raised by his Aunt Alexandra. Also, the title character in Mary Shelley's novella Mathilda is raised by her severe aunt after her mother dies and her father abandons her. It might be interesting to think about why exactly VN chose to make JS an orphan, and whether or not this fits with the way orphans have traditionally functioned in literary narratives.
Many thanks,
Matt
>>> On 11/6/2008 at 8:26 PM, in message <491352F702000012002EA7D7@dudley.holycross.edu>, NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
Tom Sawyer was raised by his dead mother's sister, Aunt Polly.
Gavriel Shapiro [and Michael Donohue]
Sredni Vashtar, of course.
Carolyn Kunin
Just barely [September 1900] "Aunty Em, Aunty Em!"
Sandy Drescher
Jane Eyre was raised by her heartless Aunt Reed. David Copperfield is adopted by his kind, eccentric aunt Betsy Trotwood and even renamed "Trot" (an apt word for Pale Fire) in her honor. Also Pollyanna (1913) -- but Jane, David, and Tom are probably the best examples.
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney