ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the modes of engaging the sense perceptions of the reader in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading and begins the discussion of discourse structures and defamiliarization. Several scenes from this novel can be interpreted as representations of experiences of a heavily corporeal nature. Besides the author's techniques of depicting ordinary and synaesthetic sense perceptions, the patterns of dynamic structures and mechanisms of human perception sometimes seem to structure and motivate the text as well as the plot of the novel. Through a comparative reading with Poe's short story, the analysis traces and examines possible functions of perception in narratives that are dominated by the feelings of extreme anxiety and fear of death. It argues that these emotions entail distinct structures in perceptions, which, especially in Nabokov's story, organize and influence the narration and defamiliarize the story, which reads like an absurdist work.
