Essay Comparing The Go-Between And Lolita

However, Humbert Humbert’s arrogance causes him to hold himself above all others, except when he's trying to charm the reader with his false modesty — but it is transparent. By making his narrator so vulgarly arrogant, Nabokov is revealing the capitalist persona he’s created, leaving the reader disenchanted with Humbert Humbert and his charm.

On one side, the Lisbon sisters lose their grip on what innocence truly means, allowing themselves to get caught in the fast moving pace of their youth. Without any outlet for their self-expression, they take their own lives out of pain and grief. The religious references and lively imagery paradoxically describe the lack of morality and the ultimate loss of life. Lo is no longer “Dolores on the dotted line,” but Lolita through and through (11). Humbert ripped her childlike innocence from her delicate fingertips, creating a wandering soul without roots.

Furthermore, Humbert further provides a dishonest narrative through his creation of a ‘grotesque theatrical character’ (Courtier 1996), in order to disassociate himself from the monster he truly is. This is aided by how Nabokov uses a diary-like structure to allow Humbert to experiment with his own format, for example ‘Main character: Humbert the Hummer. Time: Sunday morning in June. Place: sunlit living room.’ (Nabokov 1955) which resembles a script that Humbert himself has created when in reality he is reciting yet another lust-filled encounter with Lolita. Throughout this passage, and the novel, Nabokov switches from third person to first person narrative which further illustrates Humbert’s confusion over his desires, and how he

So far, so good. Having had intercourse with Lolita earlier that morning Humbert, not surprisingly, sees her as his victim, sees both her childlike innocence and the signs of his own brutal assault on that innocence. But at the end of the passage, Humbert's understanding of Lolita and her "lost innocence" changes radically as he proclaims her to

The relationship between Annabel and Humbert is one marked with sexual restraint. Humbert describes an important sexual encounter, when they escaped to a mimosa grove while their chaperones play bridge, in great depth and it is this encounter that haunts Humbert for the rest of his life. Shortly after this moment, Annabel is called away by her mother and Humbert never gets to reach his sexual climax. He also never sees Annabel again because she dies of typhus four months later. Because of her death, Annabel is kept sacred and perfect in Humbert’s memory. The unsuccessful first tryst plagues the rest of Humbert’s relationships with women. Ellen Pifer reiterates this in her book, Demon and Doll, saying that “It is Humbert’s longing for the unattainable, for ideal perfection – what he calls the ‘rosegray never-to-be-had’ – that fires his imagination and fuels his desire for nymphet beauty” (68). This unattainable perfection which Pifer speaks of appears to be the ever-young Annabel.

    The relationship between Humbert Humbert and Lolita is no doubt a unique one. Many people who read the novel argue that it is based on "lust", but others say that Humbert really is in "love" with Lolita. However, there is some astounding evidence that Humbert has an obsessional-compulsive disorder with Lolita. The obsession is clearly illustrated when Humbert's actions and behavior are compared to the experts' definitions and descriptions of obsession. In many passages, Humbert displays obsessional tendencies through his descriptive word choice and his controlling personality. Many people are obsessive, so this is not an alien subject. We see it everyday in the entertainment industry as well as in

In the book Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, to psychoanalyze the main character, Humbert Humbert, would take far too long. His craving for the “nymphets” stems from the loss of his very own childhood love, Annabel. At the age of 12, he fell in love with Annabel. However, before the two young children were ever able to become intimate, Annabel died. Humbert alleges that their failure to consummate their relationship is what impelled Humbert to subconsciously have these sexual wants for nymphets. In psychoanalysis, Freud explains that issues that develop during the time of adulthood are stemmed from instances that occurred during childhood. The inability to have sex with Annabel has become a subconscious turmoil for Humbert and as an adult, he is subconsciously trying to fulfill that void. Conferring

Furthermore, as Lolita can be considered an open text and this paper is concerned with bringing female perspectives to the forefront of the novel, it is reasonable to apply traditional feminist theory to the text to examine Humbert’s marginalisation of women. In particular, this reading will be formulated through applying the work of second-wave feminist Kate Millett, which focuses on exposing the reprehensibility of patriarchal oppression. To begin, Nabokov consistently constructs Humbert to display misogynistic views. To illustrate this, in the scene where Humbert recalls his sexual excitement when Dolores laid across his lap, he fantasizes about being ‘a radiant and robust Turk…enjoying the youngest and frailest of his slaves.’ Due to the reader’s knowledge of Humbert’s affinity for ‘nymphets,’ whom he defines as girls between the age of nine and fourteen, it can be deduced that these ‘slaves’ are female. The word ‘frail’ holds connotations of debility, fragility and vulnerability. Through these negative associations, Nabokov has positioned readers to understand that Humbert views women as inferior to men. This holds relevance to Millett’s theory of female inferiority, through which she explains that ‘the female’s inferior status’ is ‘ascribed to her physical weakness or intellectual inferiority.’ Millett published her work in 1969 during the second wave feminist movement, whereby women demanded equality and challenged patriarchal ideologies regarding sexuality,

The two passages, written by Humbert Humbert, describes two of his ‘nymphet’ loves. In the passage, both Annabelle and Lolita gets introduced. Read the passages carefully. Then, write an essay that compares H.H.’s perspective of the two characters to show his feelings on both of them.

This has occurred in society before where criminals convicted of murder simply blame it on their Schizophrenia or Bipolar disorder. Barbara Straumann, when analyzing the relationship between young Humbert and his lover Annabel, states, “Yet, if the Annabel story is one of his fakes, it is fabricated to deceive himself...thinking about the cause of ‘the rift in my life’ giving rise, or rather arousing, his ‘excessive desire’ for underage girls” (94). Here, Straumann explores the unreliability of Humbert’s narration by claiming his story of Annabel as simply an excuse for his actions. Child molesters blaming their actions on traumas in the past was exactly the event critics fear if the ideas in Lolita become widespread. Proceeding from mental disorders, Humbert brings up his other “side” who mistreated Lolita. This ushers in dissociative identity disorder to the novel, another illegitimate excuse critics believe can be used as a justification for child molestation. Mark Nicholls also finds Humbert’s admission of another personality. He states, “For in Humbert, from the beginning, there is that other side of his personality, the side in which sexuality...bound up with the pursuit of perversion” (162). Additionally, critics claim Nabokov characterizes Humbert so he is able to mask his evil nature behind his eloquence and charm. Humbert recounts

She does not say the address and Humbert goes to search for her. He takes the gun with him to kill the kidnaper. When Humbert sees Lolita after three years he notices how she is grown up and no longer she is a nymphet. He realizes that he still loves her so much. Lolita says is not her husband who abducted her but Clare Quilty. She says that she knew him since she was a child and he had been a friend with her mother. Lolita tells Humbert what happened after they got out of the hospital. Quality wants Lolita to be in his pornographic films, but Lolita refused and Quality kicked her out. I think Quality like Humbert, he is the shadow of Humbert. They have the same thought about nymphet. Everywhere Humbert goes Quality was there. Clare Quality was the stranger who ask Humbert at the Enchanted Hunters hotel. “where the devil did you get her?” (Nabokov 127). Humbert says that Lolita is his daughter, Quality says “you lie she is not” (Nabokov 127). It is obvious that Quality follow them from the beginning. So, Humbert finds it necessary to kill him. He took his love from him and made him suffer. Even Humbert knows that Lolita loves Quality. “He was the only man she had ever been crazy about … she meant something different. And I had never

Humbert Humbert has an obsession with what he calls ‘nymphets’ and later this obsession becomes fixated on a young girl by the name of Lolita. His interest in Lolita is both physically and intellectually obsessive and this can be related to Grenouille whose obsession also becomes physical. Humbert Humbert’s obsession is unique in that it doesn’t fit the society’s traditional view of paedophiles, but actually progresses further than that. He isn’t satisfied with just having sex with Lolita, but he wants to ‘fix once and for all the perilous magic of nymphets’. In the 1950s, when Lolita was written and published, attitudes towards sexuality were changing and people were becoming increasingly liberal. Through the evolution of psychology at the

Lolita becomes ill, and is forced to go to the hospital. Humbert comes into the hospital one morning only to find that she has been checked out of by another man.

Lolita, the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, tells the story of Humbert Humbert, who is a perfect example of a pedophile. Although the character Humbert Humbert describes his feelings toward the twelve year old Lolita as love, in actuality, it is obsessive lust. Nabokov does an excellent job displaying the characteristics of pedophilia through this character. Reading Lolita makes us conscious of the need to be more aware that pedophilia is alive and well in our society today. In developing this point, I will examine pedophilia and its clinical characteristics as they relate to Humbert Humbert and our society.

The deviancy of Humbert’s sexual encounters with Annable Leigh, his first love, at age 13 is masked by beautiful, erotic language, making their sexual act natural and decent. Humbert asserts that his love for and memory of his first love provided the basis for his affair with Lolita. Humbert’s sexual experience with Annabel takes place one summer night in a garden on the French Riviera. His description of their act contains no sign of trepidation or self-censorship; it is highly poetic from beginning to end. The narrator is not so much trying to describe the erotic games of two