Ada: A Forbidden Love in the Veen Family of Demonia - Essay Sample

Introduction

Ada is a novel by Russian American novelist Vladimir Nabokov about an incestuous relationship in the Veen family. The book is a memoir from Dr. Ivan Veen, as he recounts his romantic relationship with his sister, Ada. The story is set in the later 19th century, in an alternate universe known as Demonia. Ivan, also known as Van, first met Ada when he went to stay at the Ardis Hall, where his uncle, Dan, lived with his family. Van starts having an affair with Dan’s daughter, Ada, who is also his cousin. Their relationship quickly escalates, and they begin having a sexual relationship. However, it later emerges that Van’s father, Demon, had an affair with Ada’s mother, Marina. It also appears that both Van and Ada are the product of that illicit affair and that Marina had given out Van to her twin sister Aqua, Van’s mother after she had a miscarriage during a skiing accident. The two are forced to separate, but they later reconnect to rekindle their romance. The tragedy of the story ends up being the fact that they love each other and cannot stay apart. Concerning ethics and morality, the literary style of the story can be considered to be sexually based on the narrator’s use of vivid description and imagery.

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The narrator consistently uses vivid descriptions when describing various elements in the story. For example, in one of the conversations in the story, the narrator uses the following words, “Many decades later Van remembered having much admired the lovely, naked, shiny, gaudily spotted and streaked shark mouth.” (Nabokov 66). In that phrase, the author uses vivid descriptions but in a way that carries eroticism. In fact, at the start of the sentence, the reader might think that he is describing a woman only for the sentence to end up being the description of a caterpillar. The immorality of the language is that the author has already described Ada as a young girl. It would be very immoral or unethical for the reader to try and picture her in any sexual connotation. Yet that is what the author seems to be pushing for exactly, with his choice of words.

The author goes to the extent of using hyperbole in the description to get the reader to concentrate on the character’s features. According to Mora, “hyperbole is defined as a form of extremity or excess that either magnifies or minimizes some real state of affairs or fact” (27). In the case of the caterpillar, the author wanted to draw parallels between Ada and the caterpillar. Although the narrator is talking about Ada, the reader can’t help it but feel like he is talking about Ada since the scene involved Ada and Van.

The same literary style is present when the narrator dedicates a considerable portion of the story by describing Ada’s bodily features. For example, in the story, the author says, “Her features were saved from elfin prettiness by the thickish shape of her parched lips” (Nabokov 69). The reader can see the level of detail that the author dedicates to describing Ada’s bodily features. He goes ahead to say, “she bit them so thoroughly that all vestige of free margin was replaced by a groove cutting into the flesh with the tightness of wire and lending an additional spatula of length to her naked fingertips,” (Nabokov 69). At this point, the description turns sexual, as evidenced by the author’s choice of words such as “flesh,” “tightness” and “naked” are designed to suggest some form of eroticism. Such a vivid description of a 12-year-old girl carries some sense of immorality. Although Van, who is roughly the same age as her, is the one narrating these features, the eroticism in the language is unethical and immoral for the readers.

The literary style of eroticism is also brought to life through the author’s use of imagery to describe Ada in various scenes of the story. In the story, the narrator says, “Her young round breasts were just above his face” (Nabokov 130). They use words such as “young” and “round” are designed to represent certain body features in a way that can appeal to the reader’s sexual desires. Imagery is an integral part of any literature because it increases the readers’ ability to remember certain aspects about the narrative, “correlates with various other dimensions of readers’ response” such as emotions (Kuzmicová 275).

Another instance of eroticism comes out through the use of imagery. The author says, “Van watched her pretty behind roll and tightened under its lacy bow as she made the bed.” (Nabokov 386). Once again, the reader can see that the author has immersed himself in portraying the eroticism of the moment. He makes sure to use words such as “pretty” and “lacy,” which help the reader form an image of what Van was seeing. The literary style ensures that the erotic theme is always present in the story, especially where women are involved. It also depicts that immorality that is common in most of Nabokov’s works (Rogers 2). The author had revealed the relationship between Ada and Van earlier on in the story. So, the reader was reading with the full knowledge that the two were related. The author is trying to use the familial relationship between the two as part of the novel’s eroticism.

The relationship between Van and Ada is not the only illicit relationship. Lucette, Ada’s step-sister, had also expressed her interest in Van. Then there was the relationship between Marina and Demon, who was Van’s father and married to Marina’s twin sister. The story uses these illicit affairs as part of its appeal. The immorality of the relations is used as a literary instrument.

Works Cited

Kuzmicová, Anezka. “Literary narrative and mental imagery: A view from embodied cognition.” Style 48.3 (2014): 275-293.

Mora, Laura Cano. "All or nothing: A semantic analysis of hyperbole." Revista de Lingüística y lenguas Aplicadas 4.1 (2009): 25-35.

Nabokov, Vladimir. Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. New York, Vintage International, 1990.

Rogers, Michael. “Nabokov and Morality.” Symposium Overview, special issue of Nabokov Online Journal, vol. 6, 2012, pp. 1-3