I'm making dinner

and then I'm going to sit here with some classical music and get down to business.

I was starting to worry last night as I was going through Pale Fire because I started to wonder if the trend I thought I saw didn't pertain to the poem, only Kinbote's commentary, which wouldn't be good. I'd have to alter my entire line of inquiry if the catastrophic event in question (Hazel's death is what I'm focusing on in the poem) didn't pervade the poem from start to finish. But as I was walking back to the subway after doing a little necessary shopping, I realized (aha!) that the image that opens the poem is a reversal of Hazel's death. The lines are (to refresh our memories):

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane; (33).

Keeping in mind what Kinbote says ("our shadows still walk without us," 15), but not putting too much emphasis on it because we must never forget that Kinbote's commentary was written after Shade's death and thus after the composition of the poem as it is presented to him, Shade says he is the shadow, meaning he is the one remaining after the death of another. The windowpane mirrors the frozen surface of the lake, but in this instance the solid plane is intact, which causes the death of the bird, where in Hazel's case, the plane of the lake is not solid, which is what causes her death. There's also something here about the false azure reflected in the window and potentially reflected by the surface of the lake, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

It's really down to the wire. Time to break out the post-its and do this. You know what I'm talking about, L. The Waffle House and our Norton Anthologies. Good times, good times.