How Does Hummbert View Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita and Bret Easton Ellis’s novel American Psycho both show the stories of seemingly regular men based off of how they interact with people in their lives while in public view. The main characters from each novel are not normal functioning men of society. Humbert Humbert from Nabokov’s Lolita is a middle aged man who has an obsession with young girls around the age of twelve. Patrick Bateman from Ellis’s American Psycho is an incredibly narcissistic, egotistic, man who is an investment banker by day and serial killer by night. Both men have had a privileged upbringing.

This results in the narrative perspective of the novel demonstrating how Humbert attempts to conceal his true nature through, in his own mind, clever ‘adjustments’ to how the story is presented and references to historical figures who shared the same desires as him- ‘Oh Lolita, you are my girl, as Vee was Poe’s and Bea Dante’s’ (Nabokov 1955), yet often reverts to a disposition in which he laments about his monstrous desires. Not only this, but the comparison to famous literary greats suggests that Humbert considers himself to be of their status and thus possesses an idolized version of himself, a self which can easily transform language into ploys to conceal his true nature.

The men who show their obsessions in Fear and Lolita do so in a more aggressive manner. Humbert, who has always had in interest in young girls, is instantly taken with Dolores, the 12 year old daughter of his landlady - “It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.” She is the whole reason for his decision to stay at the house, as he is initially put off by her mother, the domineering Charlotte. Humbert takes extreme measures by marrying Charlotte for the sole purpose of staying close to Dolores. After Charlotte’s death, Humbert takes Dolores on the road for an indefinite road trip. He is so attached to her that he becomes easily panicked when he is faced with the possibility of her leaving him. This causes him to be incredibly possessive over her, limiting her interaction with friends her own age to prevent

    In Chapter 31 of Part 1 of Lolita, Humbert and Lolita are in the lobby of the Enchanted Hunters only hours after consummating their sexual relationship. As Humbert arrives in the lobby to check out of the hotel, he observes Lolita as she sits reading a movie magazine in a large armchair, and his description of her progresses from a focus on her loss of innocence to a focus on her inner, demonic nature. As elsewhere in the novel, the reader here sees Humbert attempting to mitigate his own sense of guilt and self-loathing.

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.

Does deviating from one’s gender norms inevitably doom one down a spiral of moral corruption? Tim O'Brien, author of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and Ernest Hemingway, author of “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, certainly seem to hold this view, as evident by the fates of the major female characters in their respective works. The deviance of the major female characters in both works appears to corrupt not only themselves, but also pollute their partners, causing them to suffer injury or harm as a result. The degree of injury ranges from negligible, like Fossie’s demotion and broken heart, to fatal, like the bullet that rips through Macomber’s skull. It begs the question, are these stories meant to serve as cautionary tales for their female readers, or possibly for their husbands, so they may recognize gender deviance and stop it in its tracks before their wives transform into Margot Macomber or Mary Anne Bell? This essay will analyze what such characters say about pervading views of women, both in society and in literature.

Psychoanalysis is the subdivision of psychology that concentrates on treating mental disorders by identifying the relations between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. It is said that often the unconscious mind prods people to make decisions even if they don’t’ distinguish it on a conscious level. The psychoanalytical theory, introduced in the 19th century by Sigmund Freud, highlights on the idea that experiences that occur during one’s childhood can contribute to the way people will function later in adulthood. In this paper, I will analyze Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov through psychoanalysis and provide reasoning behind the characters actions in this controversial novel.

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 point of view of Lolita is not unusual, what causes the emotional response is in fact who the narrator is. Humbert Humbert, the narrator, is a murdering pedophile, this perspective can initially be disturbing and even stopped a lot of potential readers from actually reading the book. In the article “Romantic parody and the ironic muse in 'Lolita.'” Brian Walter addresses how the author manipulated readers views on an admittedly criminal character. Walter claims that “If the romantic parody criticizes Humbert, it flatters him as well, to the point that, in Trilling's terms, "we find ourselves the more shocked when we realize that, in the course of reading the novel, we have come virtually to condone the violation it presents" (331).” Walter uses a quote from Trilling’s "The Last Lover." to defend his claim that readers do end up feeling a sense of sympathy towards a character that forms a

Literary devices are used in Lolita to help contribute the reader’s understanding the major themes. One of the literary devices Nabokov used was allegory, “There, on the soft sand, a few feet away from our elders, we would sprawl all morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of every blessed quirk in space and time to touch each other: her hand, half-hidden in the sand, would creep toward me, its slender brown fingers sleepwalking nearer and nearer; then, her opalescent knee would start on a long cautious journey; sometimes a chance rampart built by younger children granted us sufficient concealment to graze each other’s salty lips; these incomplete contracts drove our healthy and inexperienced younger bodies to such

Nabokov’s character Humbert Humbert from Lolita is perfectly described in this stanza from Robert Browning’s “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.” Nabokov compares Humbert to many poets throughout Lolita. Humbert likens himself to a Romantic poet with the intent of rationalizing his crime of pedophilia as an artistic endeavor. To Humbert, in particular, life really does imitate art. Art also imitates life. Nabokov created the character of Humbert in the image of Edgar Allan Poe. Humbert’s life as a character closely resembles Poe’s literary works of art, and Nabokov’s art, the character of Humbert in Lolita, bears an interesting resemblance to Poe’s true life.

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.

In the novel Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov we see our two main characters Lolita and Humbert Humbert have an inappropriate relationship with one another and very few things in common, but one thing they do have in common that is consistent throughout the novel is that they are both victims of alienation and exile. Nabokov himself was an exile from his home country of Russia and never really settled down permanently after leaving. He ended up dying alone in a hotel in Switzerland. The theme of alienation and exile in Lolita is partly comprised from the fact that Nabokov was traveling cross country with his wife for the majority of the time he was writing this novel (Jones 1).

Humbert’s various faces are quite different from each other. He is seen as a suave, sophisticated, handsome man to the public, and to even his wife, Charlotte, who describes him as having a “dark, romantic, European way”(68). His “old-world reticence” and sense of decorum” dominate the image of a refined man that the people of American see in him (68). He is viewed as a devoted husband and father, and as an intellectual. Although he spurs the

From the first, he juxtaposes the ordinary with the sexual in his descriptive odes to love as well as simple statement reflecting her youth. The juxtaposition of youth and sexual desire is the driving force behind the novel and the controversy. The wording, however, is a mixture of romantic lyricism and obscene allusion. The tension is derived through the sensuous beauty of the words rather than the image of the young girl, just “four feet ten”. “The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps” refers to Humbert’s tongue and the palate he wishes to “tap at three on the teeth” is Lolita’s. Evidently, Humbert’s clever choice of words masks the interdict aspect of his sexual desires for Lolita. Poetic lines such as “light of my life, fire of my loins” become fundamental in understanding the contextual allusion from immorality in Humbert’s deviant sexual desires and behavior.