Character Clues
Character Analysis
Speech and Dialogue
We have to begin with the obvious. Pnin's imperfect English is one of the things that makes him distinct. All of the other characters talk about his language troubles, and for a few moments we get to experience it firsthand. For example: "It is nine hundred ninety nine, Todd Rodd, very simple I at the very very end of the rodd, where it unites with Cleef Ahvnue. A leetle breek house and a beeg blahk cleef" (6.5.10).
This barely understandable series of sentences is Pnin attempting to explain where his housewarming party will take place. Just count yourself lucky Siri doesn't talk like that.
Anyway, this speech identifies Pnin as distinctly un-American. It's not just that he's foreign culturally, but he's literally unable to communicate with those around him. Just as he's basically unable to maneuver anything at all in his new home of the United States.
But not all of the Russian émigrés in the novel share the same fate. For example, there is Liza: "In her fluent and flashy New York English, with brash metallic nasalities and soft lapses into furry Russianisms, she regaled strangers in his presence with stories that he had heard countless times and that were either over-embroidered or untrue" (4.2.2).
She, unlike Pnin, is totally fluent and her accent is only occasional. Liza is also apparently totally integrated into American society. After all, her son even attends a fancy American boarding school and she's dumping her second Russian husband for a new one.
So in Pnin these speech differences amongst the Russian émigrés show us who has been integrated into American society and who has not. Unfortunately for poor Pnin, it's pretty clear that he's a long way from fitting in with the crowd.
Family Life
For a novel about a divorced guy with no biological children, Pnin sure spends a lot of time talking about family relationships. And the main family in this novel, with Pnin on its periphery, is the Wind family.
We would tell you all about them, but we're pretty sure this passage tells you most of what you need to know. The narrator says: "To the Winds, Victor was a problem child insofar as he refused to be one. From the Wind point of view, every male child had an ardent desire to castrate his father and a nostalgic urge to re-enter his mother's body. But Victor did not reveal any behavior disorder, did not pick his nose, did not suck his thumb, was not even a nail biter" (4.3.3).
What does this say? It says that Victor is an unusually normal (a.k.a. well-behaved) child. He's totally well adjusted. Even though his parents seem kind of weird.
Just from this passage we learn about Liza's and Eric's obsession with psychological theory. We learn that they do not have a good relationship with Victor. And we also learn that they probably fuss over him way more than he would like them to. In other words, what we've got here is a totally dysfunctional family.
On the other hand, Victor dreams of Pnin, who he has never met, as his real father. And even though their meeting is awkward, he still sends Pnin a beautiful blue bowl as a present later in the novel.
Even though neither of these relationships are perfect, the difference in the way Victor treats his parents and the way he treats Pnin makes us agree that Pnin feels more like his "real" dad. Which adds to the weird set of family dynamics, but is nice, since we sort of have a soft spot for our poor Pnin.