Lolita Literary Devices

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.

In the short stories “Stones” and “To Every Thing There is a Season” the authors Sandra Birdsell and Alistair MacLeod both use literary devices in a similar manner in order to achieve their thematic objectives. This essay will compare the way the authors use three literary devices such as imagery, metaphor and similes in their short stories to portray the thematic objective of loss of innocence.

Everyone needs hope in their lives for the good times and the bad. Hope is an essential part of human life, which is sometimes symbolized into objects. Legend by Marie Lu is a dystopian story about Day, a slum sector teen criminal, and June, a wealthy military prodigy. Marie Lu uses Day’s pendant to symbolize the hope and freedom Day and June yearn for.

Questions reader should ask when trying to determine symbolic meaning: “what’s the writer doing with this image, this object, this act; what possibilities are suggested by the movement of the narrative or the lyric; and most important, what does it feel like it’s doing?” (Foster 59).

Markus Zusak’s intricate novel, The Messenger tells a story of a teenager living in a low socio-economic area of Sydney. Throughout the text Zusak employs a variety of literary devices to assist in the readers connection with Ed’s journey of self-discovery as well as questioning their own. Ed Kennedy narrates the book as the protagonist, following his ‘epitome of ordinariness’ life. Ed is faced with a number of challenges, which contributes, in his journey of self-discovery. Each literary device used in the book compliments the challenge during the text.

America stands as the most prominent nation of liberty and freedom for all, yet some people still feel the reins of America’s oppressive past. Those include young African Americans and women, who feel that society places unequal expectations on them, simply based on their gender or race. Two young, American writers, Sylvia Plath and Langston Hughes especially feel this way through their works, Sylvia Plath at Seventeen and Theme for English B. Plath and Hughes employ tone, tone shift, and parallelism throughout their works to convey their message that young adults must stand up to demoralizing social expectations.

In the short story “Initiation” by Sylvia Plath, Millicent Arnold is a narcissistic teenager undergoing her initiation into the most prestige social group at Lansing High. Despite being aware of the risk at losing her best friend, Tracy, Millicent eagerly seeks the opportunity to be part of a close-knit group and as a result, she is mistreated and forced to conform to the group’s narrow standards. Plath explains how being part of a social group does not necessarily help one grow individually, but rather assimilates them into what is portrayed as esteemed social status. As Millicent goes through the downgrading initiation process, she discovers the value of friendship and realizes that being associated with a certain group will not help her achieve confidence in her true self.

    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.

At first glance, one might find it difficult to draw comparisons between the two protagonists: James Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby, and Humbert Humbert, from Lolita. Gatsby’s is the tragic story of a self-made man who built himself an empire for a woman who would never love him. Humbert Humbert, on the other hand, is a manipulative and witty pervert who lusts after the vulgar nymphet, Lolita. Both men are extremely similar in one key aspect, however. Both Gatsby and Humbert have idealized an encounter from their youth and that idealization has become a driving obsession in each of their lives.

Men have a historical reputation of treating females poorly and thinking they are above them. Men have also been known to create generalizations and stereotypes towards females that limit them in society. In the short story “The Women's Open” by David Sedaris, Lou is taking two of his children, David and Lisa, for a ride in his second-hand Porsche. Lou is shown to be a golf enthusiast, trying to spend as much as he can on the golf course, whether that’s playing or watching golf. He constantly tries to trick and force his children to be more involved in golf which is evident by the quote, “Once again we’d been duped. There was nothing worse than spending an afternoon on a golf course.” The male nature mentioned is evident in Lou because he is accepting the female stereotypes by treating females disrespectfully throughout the text.

The author’s words, or diction, help the audience imagine the story more clearly. Her word choice is concrete, writing that is overly abstract and general. This permitts her purpose to be easily picked up while reading, informing people on the importance of inpendency. She also adds depth to her essay by filling it with adjectives like, “bubbling,” “crumpled,” and “shimmering.” Her language also ties into the idea of these strategies making for a better essay.

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,

“Symbols and Signs,” a short story written by Vladimir Nabokov, revolves around a Jewish couple from Minsk, Russia, who has a son with a mental disability called “referential mania.” It was their son’s birthday when several unfortunate events, including their son’s recent suicide attempt, prevented them from visiting him and from giving him the birthday present that they prepared for him. As they got back home, they eventually decided to bring him home and the story ended with three telephone calls, the first two being wrong numbers and the third phone call remained unanswered. This close reading would focus on the plot, the characters, and the symbols used, in showing how people have different perceptions of reality.

“New Year’s Day” by Edith Wharton uses literary devices to reveal how the social values and customs have changed from how they were in old New York, by exemplifying a number of literary terms throughout her work. Through the title alone, the audience can infer that there will be a drawn contrast between “old” New York and “new” New York because New Year’s Day is often a point that people use to start over and work on their “New Year’s Resolutions.” It’s a time where people see change, and the change in New York’s customs, according to Wharton, was drastic. She demonstrates this by speaking through the narrator of a gentleman who is currently a member of society in what he considers to be “new” New York and throughout various points of the

Sylvia’s Plath’s “Metaphors” is about a woman feeling insignificant during the midst of her pregnancy. Striking imagery is used to explore the narrator’s attitudes about having a child. Plath uses metaphors in every line, including the title itself, making the poem a collection of clues. The reader is teasingly challenged to figure out these clues, realising that the metaphors have