Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Essay

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.

After looking past its controversial sexual nature, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita can be read as a criticism of the capitalist system. Nabokov uses the relationship between the novel's narrator, Humbert Humbert, and the novel's namesake, Lolita, as an extended metaphor to showcase the system's inherent exploitive nature in a way that shocks the reader out of their false consciousness, by making the former a man in the position of power - a repulsive, manipulative pedophile — and the latter a young female victim — as well as a spoiled, vapid, unruly child. Each is to the other nothing more than a commodity — Lolita being the perfect consumer and Humbert Humbert being a man of privilege who views others

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.

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.

La Llorona real name was Maria. Maria was a very beautiful mexican women with long thick black shiny hair and also very tall and skinny. She wore a white gown at all times and also with bare feet. She is very basic but not on the inside. She had two small sons that took up most of her evening time but still loved them like they were one and only.

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

Accepting environments on the other hand, allow for the creation of imagination and personal connections. Nafisi in her “Selections from Reading Lolita in Tehran” speaks about the creation of her reading group, and provides the type of education she desired to provide as an educator but was restricted to provide based on the Iranian regime. The Iranian society oppresses against women, forcing them to conform to societal norms. On the other hand, Nafisi introduces her students to a fantasy like environment during their literature class. This allows for the connection amongst the girls and Nafisi to be personal. The idea of connection can be done while making a comparison between the women in Iran and characters within a novel Nafisi discussed with her students. Nafisi states:

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 literary canon is the group of texts considered to be of the most value. These are books which are generally taught in schools, colleges and universities. Authors that belong to the canon seem to follow certain characteristics; middle or upper class, white male authors who are dead. Writers such as Shakespeare, Milton and Chaucer are synonymous with the canon and also follow these characteristics. Vladimir Nabokov follows most of these characteristics for authors within the canon, but can his novel ‘Lolita’ be considered to have any canonical value? How can the story of paedophile, Humbert Humbert, who becomes obsessed with twelve-year old Dolores Haze, be considered part of the

This was a form of resistance. Resistance against all norms put in place to control a woman. La Llorona liberates herself to live the way she chooses to live. She reclaims who she is and does not allow herself to be confined to standards put in place. La Llorona’s stories have evolved and have been reinterpreted time and time again. This is why we can find a way to relate to her. Whether it is because you have control over your own sexuality and are able to be with whoever you want to be with whenever you want to be with them, without worrying about what others think. Or you’re satisfied with yourself as a mother even if you are not the nurturing type that society says a mother is supposed to naturally be. Whatever it may be if it goes outside society’s standards of normal behavior but you do it anyway because this is who you are, then you can relate to La Llorona. She also did things her way and didn’t worry about what others thought or might say about her. This is why La Llorona is a huge opportunity for us to ask what the real meaning behind her story is. Ask how can we reconstruct her story so that it benefits us? How can we work that into our lives as an example to follow, so that we can live our lives the way we see fit. Not the way others believe we have and should live our lives. Because these standards we’ve followed for so long have an effect on us not only physically with control over our actions but spiritually over who we are. Not being who we are at all times take a toll on our well-being. It doesn’t allow us to live a full

Annabelle and Lolita are two of Humbert Humbert’s love infatuations in the book Lolita. He finds love in both of them. H.H. talks about Lolita and Annabelle in similar ways; however, his perspective of the two differ.

To begin with, in the source “Reading Lolita in Tehran” she rebelled in her own way and had certain effects. According to the text “Coiling her scarf around her neck to cover her huge gold earrings”. “Put on thin lacy black gloves over her red nail polish”. The purpose of the author writing that was to show her way of rebelling by her wearing certain garments that is forbidden by law, but covering it. The purpose of her doing that is to have a feel of rebelling against the law and not getting punished her effect of rebelling was her making it to her destination safely, but thinking about her dangerous gesture that could have gotten her killed. She also thinks about what she could have done to change her

There are several points where I disagree with Mr. Prescott about Lolita, but that was expected since this review was written in 1958. One point that Mr. Prescott makes is that the novel is disgusting and that, “to describe such a perversion with the pervert's enthusiasm without being disgusting is impossible.” He also states that Mr. Nabokov failed at doing so in Lolita, but I disagree. I actually believe that Nabokov succeeds in confusing the reader and makes the narrative of a pervert not as disturbing as most would think it to be. All of the french words and phrases used as well as the numerous uses of figurative language in the text distract the user from the disgust they feel about his perversion. One place where this occurs is in a small

A Clockwork Orange is a science fiction, crime thriller; Lolita’s genre falls somewhere under the category of a tragicomedy. The setting of A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian, near future England while the setting of Lolita is in the United States shortly after World War II. The main characters in both of these novels are the

Vladimir Nabokov, one of the 20th century’s greatest writers, is a highly aesthetic writer. Most of his work shows an amazing interest in and talent for language. He deceptively uses language in Lolita to mask and make the forbidden divine. Contextually, Lolita may be viewed as a novel about explicit sexual desire. However, it is the illicit desire of a stepfather for his 12-year old stepdaughter. The novel’s subject inevitably conjures up expectations of pornography, but there in not a single obscene term in Lolita. Nabokov portrays erotic scenes and sensual images with a poetic sensibility that belies the underlying meaning of the words. The beautiful manipulation of language coerces one to understand Humbert’s interdict act of