In Nabokov's fiction at the end of the 1920s, that obsession with images of the other seen in Mary and King, Queen, Knave takes on ever more serious tones. Confounded in their relationships with others, his protagonists begin to see the other as an enigmatic, even hostile entity. Gradually, the entire world becomes transformed before their eyes, and the resulting vision often arouses terror in their souls. As Franz discovered “horror” in his solipsistic affair with Martha, so too the protagonists of “Terror” and The Defense find horror in the cosmos they perceive around them. Having lost the ability to view others without distortion, they find themselves locked in a realm of nightmarish transformation. To chart the contours of this delirium, Nabokov draws on the fantastic art of Nikolai Gogol, adapting those idiosyncratic narrative techniques which edge the readers away from their accustomed viewpoint on the narrated event.

While Nabokov's works highlight the dangers of failing to see the other in proper perspective, they also underscore the importance of forging intimate relationships with others in one's environment. Those characters bedeviled by an uncertain sense of personal identity require close contact with another to help them fix their moorings in life. Yet the narratives of this period demonstrate how difficult it is for Nabokov's protagonists to forge such relationships.