Considerations on Vladimir Nabokov’s Short Story Terror Through Martin Heidegger’s Philosophy

Abstract

This essay is intended as an exercise in the understanding of some of Martin Heidegger’s important ideas, especially in the notion of dread by the philosopher. In order to elucidate these ideas, a philosophic reading of Vladimir Nabokov’s short story Terror is done. The story is presented here together with an approach between the experience of terror, as described in the story, and that of dread, as described by Heidegger. This approach is to be explained throughout the article in which other questions concerning Heidegger’s thought will appear and be considered.